As the men emerge from the crater, exhausted from the confrontation, their bodies shaking and weak, they look around. To their dismay, they see destruction in the perimeter surrounding the explosion of dark energy that emanated from the Lord of Death. Whatever buildings had once stood on the surface of the ground directly above the cultic chamber have been completely decimated, and for a good thirty yards surrounding, the damage is severe. Climbing out through the rubble they hear cries—cries of anguish and cries of fear, cries of pleading calling out the names of those who are lost—and they fear the worst. Upon coming to the streets of the city, they are met by a crowd of persons who have gathered about the wound in the earth, and they immediately learn that the same light that had enfolded the five men in the chamber also enveloped the people in the houses and streets surrounding, saving them from the blast. Only those in the area directly above the chamber were not spared the full force of the explosion, and their deaths must have been instantaneous.
Eldarien receives this news with a mixture of relief and of regret. The light, called upon by his and Rorlain's conscious will, had nonetheless spread to protect others whose location they did not know, and had protected them as well. But such light had not prevented all destruction, nor all death, and—whether through the limits of their own power or through some other mysterious reason or circumstance—the explosion had been directed upward, and nothing in that direction had softened the blast.
But why? Why had this happened, and what was its import? Indeed, why had this explosion occurred at all? Not only do these questions plague the hearts of the men, but they also greet them in the numerous voices of citizens who crowd around them, their faces marked with panic or confusion and their words drowning one another out in the effort to be heard. It takes a moment before Bryma is able to silence the crowd enough that he can address them. "There was a mysterious power that slumbered beneath the city," he says, "but it appears to have been exorcised. We will tend to your losses immediately, and shall share more information with all of you soon."
"Bryma, it was not—" Eldarien begins softly, whispering in his ear. But Bryma turns and gives him a look that immediately silences him.
"Rûmdil, will you please hasten to the citadel and inform the members of the council of what you have witnessed?" says Bryma, turning away. And then, addressing the people again, "Are there any wounded that need immediate treatment?"
Before any answers can be given, however, the earth groans and shakes with such violence beneath their feet that they are hardly able to remain standing. As if in anguish the land cries out, and then from the center of the crater, a scar upon the flesh of Telmerion, black mist begins to belch forth. The same blackness that had enfolded the five men in their confrontation with the Lord of Death now seeps from the center of the wound, spreading rapidly outward like poisonous fumes, wrapping itself around everything in its path, and piercing its every crevice, until all is immersed in darkness. Chaos ensues almost instantly as the citizens cry out in fear and confusion, uncertain of the dangers that the darkness might hold. Despite their best efforts, there is little that Bryma and the others can do to calm or temper this panic. In a matter of minutes the city is enveloped in darkness not unlike that of night, though more wicked and malicious, and without the subtle beauty that the night of the world always bears, and the mist rises up to blot out the very sky, until the sun itself is hardly more than a grayish orb in the midst of a black sheet overhead.
And then something even worse than the external darkness comes. Eldarien and Rorlain are the first to feel it, and they immediately know what it is, for long now have they been acquainted with the terror that is induced by the proximity of the creatures of darkness, the eötenga. From the same center from which the dark fog spread now begins to emerge a creature not unlike the druadach, but much larger, with muscle rippling across its taut flesh. It climbs out of a hole in the earth as if some insect tunneling from the depths of the soil back to the surface, and it lets out a roar that echoes across the city. As it takes a step forward, they see that the rippling of its muscles is due not only to its incredible strength, but to something else; for it looks almost like the skin boils and, in boiling, rips open to unleash what it bears within. From all over its body then lash out in every direction massive snakes, with fangs bared, hungering for prey. The creature steps forward and calls out in the black language words of command, to which respond immediately its companions, eötenga in great number, of all shapes and sizes, crawling forth from the crater as spiders from their secret lairs. There are druadach not unlike those that they have encountered before—in the barrow of Sera Galaptes and in the siege of Ristfand—though they look to have been "improved" by their master, with claws as long as daggers, able to pierce armor and to counteract a blade, and with spine-like growths upon their skin, on the torso and on the upper arms and legs, which evidently serve as armor. In addition to these druadach, there are other eötenga as well, whose great variety and grotesqueness surpass description.
"And thus it begins…" sighs Eldarien, unconsciously stepping back and staggering upon his feet, as if struck with a blow to the chest. Taking a moment to reign in his fear and frustration, and the panic that he too feels, he turns to Bryma and Cirien and says, "Have everyone evacuate the lower city to the upper portions, and seal off all access between the two. I know not how or where they shall appear, but this is clearly the locus point of their arrival. And set ablaze all the lights that you can! Torches and braziers and hearths, all of it. Light will be your best weapon against these beasts, but prepare also to fight them off with weapons of iron and steel."
"Our torches give hardly any light, sir," says a voice behind Bryma. They turn and lay their eyes upon a soldier of the guard, his face lined with despair, though a spark of courage shows still in his eyes. And his words are true: in his hand he holds a torch with flame licking from it in full blaze, but its light is all but devoured by the blackness that surrounds it.
"Oh, by all the gods...what are we to do?" cries Bryma in anguish.
"The very same as I said," insists Eldarien. "There is no choice but this. The light is weak, but it shines nonetheless." He pauses a moment and then opens his mouth to say something else, to ask for a company of guards to remain here and aid in the resistance, but there is no time. The beasts begin to spread from the crater, and he draws the lightbringer from its scabbard and steps forward to meet them. Rorlain is at his side, his axe already blazing with bluish light.
"We must be sparing," Eldarien manages to say before they engage the enemy. "To expend the light too liberally will break our strength too soon. But we will do what we must to hold them off until the people of the city can take refuge and until a defense can be prepared."
"Let us hope we last that long," replies Rorlain, and then he sweeps forward, his axe blazing, leaving a trail of light lingering in the air where three druadach are felled in a single blow.
Without being asked, a company of soldiers does join the two men, though Eldarien can feel the fear gripping them like a poison threatening to paralyze them where they stand. And so, even while he wields his sword against the enemy, he calls out to his companions in words of guidance and encouragement, instructing them anew on the best way to fell the enemy, and trying to stir in them hope for successful resistance. But he knows the terror that the eötenga sow by their very presence, and he himself feels also the terrible weight of the black mist which seems to invade not only the air surrounding him but also assails the very recesses of his heart and his mind, seeking to crush them into impotence.
In order to protect the men who fight with him, Eldarien places himself in the path of the largest beast, whose flesh roils with snakes dancing left and right and preparing to strike when it steps into proximity with the soldiers of the guard. And they do strike out against Eldarien with vicious speed, more in number than he is able to deflect with his blade. He severs many of them from the body of the beast, their heads falling to the ground and hissing as they dissolve into nothingness, but eventually he is forced to call forth a blaze of light from his upraised palm and to burn the rest of them in holy fire. Against this fire they recoil, shrieking in a horrible sound that causes the eardrums to ache. But then they are silent.
Eldarien falters, feeling the strength leave him, and he leans for a moment upon his sword to regain his balance. But despite the slaying of the snakes that emerged from its flesh, the eöten itself does not falter, but steps forward and seeks to engage Eldarien in combat. In an instant its upraised arms are intercepted by Rorlain, who leaps through the air and with a wide swipe removes both of its hands from its body. These two dissolve to nothing as soon as they touch the earth. Howling in anger, the eöten raises is head into the air and calls out. Without hesitating, Eldarien takes this opportunity and lunges forward, thrusting the lightbringer deep into the chest of the creature, until he is certain that it has pierced its heart. But as it falls to its knees and then crumbles away as dust in the wind, Eldarien's eyes see behind it more creatures of similar size and form climbing forth from the crater, all of them roaring in triumphant rage, their bodies as though fashioned to be weapons of both danger and terror by a malicious will and a mind that delights in twisted forms.
"We're going to be overrun, Eldarien," Rorlain calls from a few feet behind him. "Pull back and regroup!"
As the company does so, and to their relief, a volley of arrows rains down upon the eötenga, loosed most likely from the upper portions of the city which lie only perhaps a hundred yards to the north.
"But the arrows will not be enough," laments Rorlain. "Unless they strike the heart, they shall do no good."
"If only we could…" Eldarien breathes, but his voice dies in his throat.
For a moment, before the enemy engages them again, Rorlain catches Eldarien's eyes and looks deeply into them. "Perhaps we can," he says, and his voice is full of meaning, a thread of hope reaching out as if to weave its way through the very darkness and despair itself, and to forge a path.
With the next volley of arrows Rorlain extends his arms and closes his eyes, rapt in intense concentration. Immediately Eldarien feels power passing through him, surging through his heart and his flesh as it flows into Rorlain, and through Rorlain into the arrows that fall from the sky. In an instant their tips burst forth in blue flame, like a shower of stars glowing pure and bright, and then plunging into the flesh of the beasts. On contact with the light they dissolve, defeated, even if the arrow that struck their bodies only grazed them.
Eldarien allows himself to be encouraged by this sight, even though he feels the weakness grip him still more strongly. He hesitates for a moment, but, knowing now that this can be done, he cannot count the cost. With an act of the will he unleashes the light also into the blades of the soldiers of the guard who stand around him, and they burst forth in the same brilliance, meeting in combat the creatures that still emerge from the darkness as quickly as they are slain.
Despite this, his heart grieves to see many of these men slain at the hands of the beasts, overcome by their sheer number and by the terror that they bring with them, overwhelming the heart and deadening the body even as it tries to resist.
† † †
Tilliana and Elmariyë rush through the upper city, lighting lights and encouraging wavering spirits as the battle rages below. Evacuees from the lower city—women, children, and the elderly—are aided in their flight to the citadel and its surrounding buildings, until there is no longer any room; and then the largest and most sturdy houses of the upper city are filled and barricaded. As far as possible the untrained men, recruited only recently and given weapons despite their lack of training, are allowed to stand guard over their families and friends, their wives and children, while the trained city guard stands outside in companies awaiting their summons to direct conflict, or are already together with Eldarien and Rorlain in the midst of the fray.
Cirien, for his part, gathers a small company of men and says to them, "Will you accompany me back into the fray, not to fight the enemy directly, but to find what wounded we may of our own people, and to carry them to safety? It is more important to save the lives that are threatened than to destroy the might of our enemy. And that latter task lies not in your domain or in your capacity; it is entrusted to another." Seeing their willingness, though touched and constrained by the fear that now, with the permeating mist of darkness, fills the entire city, Cirien leads the company back into the lower city. The barricade is shut firmly behind them, to be opened only when they return with the wounded in need of healing.
In addition to this company of rescue led by Cirien, another group of soldiers is led by the captain of the guard, a man by the name of Hinding. Senfyr, the captain-vicar, also accompanies him in leading the men. They come to the aid of those fighting with Eldarien and Rorlain to stymie the invasion of the eötenga, charging forward with swords and spears raised, like a wave at sea crashing against the bulwark of the forces of darkness. But however strong this wave may be, the wave of the eötenga is greater, pouring forth without end from the center-point of darkness that lies in the crater where the Lord of Death had appeared.
In this conflict the courage of men is tested—sorely tested—against the fearless might of the impersonal creatures of darkness, mindless tools of destruction in the hands of forces that themselves refuse to appear before those whom they so willingly subject to slaughter. Even with the reinforcement given by the troops under command of Hinding, it is hardly more than a quarter of an hour before the guards of Onylandun are pushed back to the base of the stone wall upon which the upper city stands.
"We cannot hold them any longer!" Rorlain cries to Eldarien through the fray, his axe still blazing with light in his hand, though his voice is ragged and betrays the exhaustion that threatens to overtake him. "There are too many. If we stay here any longer, none of us will survive."
Eldarien regretfully nods at the truth of these words, fearing what will happen to the rest of the city should the vanguard retreat. Will not the eötenga simply flood into the rest of the city? Perhaps indeed the vanguard is the only thing preventing them from emerging freely from every shadow in the city and working a slaughter like the one that occurred in Ristfand. Eldarien indeed has the vivid sense that the only thing keeping the creatures of darkness from emerging at will is the light that stands against it, the light entrusted into the care of Rorlain and himself. And thus he fears what may result from the withdrawal of the light, however subtle this withdrawal may be. But then he remembers the words that once emerged from within his own heart during a moment of deep realization, a realization that has continued to carry him through many places of darkness and remains with him even now: I am not the light, but am in service of the light.
This remembrance allows him to accept Rorlain's proposition in more than mere despair, but rather with a deep prayer of the heart that the light itself shall remain strong where his own strength and capacity falters. He and Rorlain then lead the company up the stone steps to the upper city—calling out for Hinding's company to follow directly behind them—and the barricade is opened for a moment to allow them all to enter. It is shut again just as quickly to block out the eötenga, who are greeted with a dense rain of arrows, blazing with light that Rorlain confers upon them.
"What else can we do?" Rorlain says, his voice constrained with anguish, when the gate closes behind them.
"I don't...I really don't know," answers Eldarien, wiping the sweat running down his forehead with the back of his hand. "But we have discovered something that we did not before know to be possible. The light can be imbued upon the weapons of others. This itself is a great boon, even if alone it is not enough. Perhaps there is more also that we can discover than this."
"Is there any way to stop the invasion itself?" Senfyr asks, joining the conversation. At his side stands Hinding, though the latter's attention is directed to his men, whom he addresses in words of encouragement.
"We would need to find their leader and to break his power," Rorlain answers. "But I have seen none who might be such."
"If it is the one who called himself the Lord of Death," says Eldarien in a voice weak with anguish, "then I have little hope either of finding him or of defeating him. His power was far beyond anything I have encountered before. I fear that it would crush all in its path in an instant. Why he did not crush us in our encounter with him, I know not...but I am certain it was not from lack of ability."
"This 'Lord' you speak of," Senfyr says, "where was he and what happened to him?"
"He was hidden in the underbelly of the city, summoned here by the members of the cult. He appeared for but a few moments in a circle of summoning, only to taunt us and to disappear—calling forth both the darkness that now envelops us as well as the beasts that now flood the city. The crater from which the creatures emerge is the same place where we encountered him."
"Could you perhaps find him in the same place again?" Senfyr asks. "I know it sounds foolish, but...if they are still emerging from the same place, could he not still be there giving life to them?"
Eldarien and Rorlain think about this for a moment, and then the former says, "I doubt it. Proximity has little or no effect on the power of such beings."
"And yet there must be a reason that the eötenga emerge from there and from nowhere else," interjects the latter. "I think there may be some truth to Senfyr's suggestion."
"What truth do you imply?"
"I wish I knew…"
At this moment Hinding finishes speaking to his men and turns to the three, interrupting their converse. He says to Eldarien, "You are the one of whom all now speak? The one gifted with light and claiming to bear the blood and heritage of Sera Galaptes? If this is the case, can you not use your powers to discern the way to defeat our enemy, rather than relying upon your reason and thought alone?" Despite the intensity in both his words and his voice, his tone is not accusative, but rather merely inquisitive.
Eldarien is taken aback at first by the directness of his question, but then he replies, "The gifts of the gods are not contrary to reason and to the truths discovered by human thought. And yet you are right in this: they go beyond it both in depth and in insight. Perhaps there is some hope in what you say."
At this moment a deafening crash sounds not far away, as the eötenga begin to batter against the gates keeping them from entering the upper city.
"We have little time," Rorlain says. "Is there any way that I can assist you, Eldarien?"
"I...I need to be alone for a moment, to concentrate," he replies. "Harness the light as you must. Give me only a few minutes. Whether I discover something or not, I shall return to you soon." With this he turns away and shuts himself in a guardhouse nearby. He drops to his knees and places his head against the earth, covering his ears with the palms of his hands to block out as much external noise as he is able. In the darkness that surrounds him he does not at first realize that his eyes have remained open, and upon this realization he closes them, directing his gaze inward, beyond the flesh, as if reaching out to touch what cannot be touched, not now the light for which the heart longs, but the darkness from which it recoils. A couple minutes pass and he feels nothing—as if he is grasping at air and wishing it were solid. But then he turns away from the darkness and back to the light, leaning into it with all of his spirit, a spirit weakened and exhausted. Show me, he pleads, show me where I must go to bring an end to this assault.
For a long moment after this, time seems to stop, and Eldarien feels suspended in expectation, a dense silence and darkness enfolding him, not now as terror and death but rather more akin to the darkness of the womb, awaiting the outpouring of light and life. And then image and awareness flow into his mind. Both together merge into one reality, a conviction in his heart abiding and deep. In image, he sees himself lifted up from the earth and carried, carried across mountains and valleys, across snow and stone, night and day, through darkness and fear and conflict, in hope and faith and longing, and to a citadel high upon majestic peaks, built upon the living rock of the mountains themselves as if an extension of the very life of Telmerion, breathing forth as a cradle for the civilization of man, and yet by man tended. In awareness, he comes instantly to understand the answer to his pleas: the assault of the creatures of darkness that now lay siege to Onylandun can only be stopped by defeating their onslaught in direct conflict here and now, and this is possible because, when slain with the power of the light, such creatures cannot return again to the earth until fashioned anew by their maker. And underneath this awareness is concealed another: it is not Eldarien's place to lead the conflict against these legions of darkness, but rather to follow the path marked out to the very heart of the darkness, whence all else arises. Only there, in confrontation with the Lord of Darkness, can the power that fashions the eötenga be broken at its source.
And as his mind and heart make contact with this mystery, as they press through the path ahead of him—across these mountains and to this abode of darkness—Eldarien feels a sense of oppressive evil, of inexpressible wickedness and malice, and also a sense of impending danger, not only to the people of Telmerion but to his own person and to the one who stands at his side. He feels the confrontation as if walking into the heart of the ocean during a terrible storm, ignoring the violent crashing of the waves that seeks ever to thrust him back toward shore. No, he cannot go back—back to safety, back to the shore—for only by casting out into the deep, by plunging into the heart both of darkness and of light, can the darkness at last be broken and light prove victorious.
And then, just as swiftly as it had come, the vision ceases, and Eldarien's consciousness returns to the guardhouse, where he kneels with his forehead to the floor, the sounds of fear and battle echoing through the walls that surround him. He rises to his feet, trying to allow the truth of the vision to abide within him—indeed to flow into him and to take up its abode in his heart—even as the constricting anguish of their current situation grasps him again with vehemence and threatens to choke his spirit. And the question immediately stirs within him, though he knows, in the lingering light of the vision, that it is a question that cannot, and need not, be answered: But what does this mean? Even when the path is shown, its details remain hidden, and only in the living of each succeeding moment, hidden in mystery until that time, are the specific contours of the journey revealed. And human freedom finds itself set upon this path, at times to accept in obedience what can be no other way, and at times to reach out with creativity and hope, finding whatever means it discerns to be best and trusting in a providence and a sight greater than its own.
And precisely this is what faces Eldarien now, as he pushes open the door of the guardhouse and steps into the crowd of soldiers that stands at ready before the wall separating the two segments of the city, the creatures of darkness battering against the gates and threatening to break them down. He hurries forward toward Rorlain and the other commanders in order to share with them what he has learned regarding the conflict that lies before him, and how these creatures shall be repelled, as little hope as there may seem to be that such a thing is possible.