Chapter 29 – Goodbye

I screamed, struggling against Mykyl’s grasp as darkness bound me. The last thing I knew was Yatol spreading his arms before the force of the Ungulion, calling something into the murk. A blinding flash of light, white and gold. Then, nothing. The portal took me and I saw no more. I tried desperately to stay conscious. All I could see in my mind was Yatol’s eyes, wrought with white fire, turned full on me as Mykyl bore me away. Life should have been returning to me, but I felt like death. I felt nothing at all but a raw void.

Smooth stone met my hands, voices rang in my ears, shouts of jubilation. Saw light bathing us, Mykyl close by me. Smelled smoke and death, sickening me. A hand fell on my shoulder, but I wrenched away from it, threw myself at Mykyl’s feet. I said nothing. I had no voice. The tears came so violent that I couldn’t even sob. But in my heart I begged him to go, to return for Yatol, to bring him back. He gazed down at me, full of compassion. Suddenly dazzling light welled inside him, bursting out in a radiance of power as he lifted his hands. I bowed my head, blinded, and when I opened my eyes, he was gone.

I felt so alone.

“Merelin!”

Damian threw his arms around me, crying with joy and laughing all at once, his grip fierce on my shoulders. He was saying something to me, speaking in a rush of words, but I neither heard nor understood them. I stared after Mykyl, then turned my head in silence to look at Damian. The laughter died on his lips when our gazes met.

“Oh Mer,” he murmured, putting his hand against my face. “Yatol?”

I shook my head. The tears rolled down my cheeks. Past Damian I saw my dad standing with the others, straight and tall and flushed with life. But his gaze was turned to me, and when our eyes met he came and knelt beside me, taking me in his arms and cradling me against his chest. I leaned my head on his shoulder, no longer crying, not even thinking. Numb and lost, I just stared out across a courtyard I scarcely saw.

Beside me, Damian bowed his head, fixing his gaze on the ground in sudden concentration. His muscles tensed, sweat stood out on his brow. Then he relaxed as the light and warmth returned. I turned to the radiance with a quick surge of hope, and watched as Mykyl appeared out of the blur of light.

Hope shattered. In his arms was Yatol.

Mykyl laid him gently on the stone, but his gaze was fixed on me. No sorrow marred his face, but somehow it spoke consolation. I couldn’t be consoled.

Somewhere behind me, Tyhlaur cried out in anguish. He ran to Yatol, lifted him from the harsh stone and wrapped his arms around him weeping. There wasn’t a part of Yatol’s body that wasn’t covered in blood. I thought there couldn’t be a single drop left in his veins. Dad tightened his arms around me. He didn’t say a word. I didn’t need words. Didn’t want them. I just leaned against him watching Tyhlaur with Yatol, and Mykyl radiant behind him.

Tyhlaur lowered Yatol back to the ground, clasping his bloodied hand in hands as bloody. He pressed it to his cheek, then lay it on Yatol’s breast and tore himself away in a rage of grief. I extracted myself from my father’s arms and crept over to Yatol. I gazed at his face, calm, strong, the old scar white under the bright heavenshine, stark against the streaks of blood. Hand shaking, I reached out and touched his brow. I half-expected him to open his eyes, to smile, to take my hand in encouragement, but he only lay in quiet…in peace…

I suddenly realized we weren’t alone in the courtyard. There were people everywhere, dancing in the streets around us, laughing and singing. Some looked at Yatol and shook their heads sadly, but most didn’t even seem to notice him. I don’t think anyone saw Mykyl. Fury seized me, and I wished bitterly that they would leave. Part of me wanted to scream at them all, to make them silence their happy clamor. I gazed at my father, then Enhyla and Kurtis, and Tyhlaur crouched against the wall inconsolable. Damian knelt beside me. All of us, silent.

“How can they be so happy?” I choked.

“We were on the brink of death,” Damian said.

I shuddered and my eyes blurred again. I knew what it meant to be on the brink of death. And Yatol…? I turned my head to hide the tears.

“The Ungulion forced the gates and were sweeping in. We were utterly vulnerable. We had already lost so many. We thought…we thought we were doomed.”

“Where are we?”

“Alcalon!” he said, following my gaze to the sand white walls and the spiraling tower above us. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It would have been destroyed, given a few minutes more of the battle.”

I shook my head. It wasn’t beautiful. It was cold and empty, and I hated it. I longed for the shaded paths and glades of the Branhau, but it was burned, the Perstaun bare, the forests around Alcalon ravaged. All empty, all hateful. I turned my gaze to Mykyl.

“Take us away from here,” I whispered, pleading. “This is no place for us.”

Mykyl bent to look me full in the eyes. “Daughter, would you take away their joy?”

I bowed my head. “No. But I can’t share it.” I glanced back at the others of our group. “They don’t, either.”

“Where would you go?”

“To the Branhau,” I said immediately, then faltered. “But it is destroyed.”

“It is not utterly destroyed,” Mykyl said.

“Please, take Yatol there. He loved the forest…”

A commotion behind us interrupted me, and turning I saw an armored man stride into the courtyard, a score of men around him. His face was very young, noble and handsome but marred with dirt and blood, and he had one arm bound to his chest. On his head was a thin gold band with silver feathers sweeping back and down, a curious crown. My dad, Mr. Dansy, Enhyla, and Tyhlaur all rose to greet him, bowing deeply. I knew who he was, but my heart shuddered and I turned desperately back to Mykyl.

“Take us away,” I begged. “I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want him to see me.”

“He will pay you and Yatol the greatest honor.”

“I don’t want it,” I said quickly. “And Yatol wouldn’t have either. Please, Mykyl!”

I was nearly in a panic, and Damian came to stand with me.

“I want to go too,” he said. “This is no place for me either. The others can follow later.”

A smile, compassionate and approving, flooded from Mykyl’s radiant eyes, and he lifted Yatol from the ground. Onethyl joined him, taking Damian and I into his arms. Light enveloped us, and the white walls of Alcalon faded from view. When the brightness subsided, we stood alone with Yatol in a tree-shaded grove of the Branhau.

I sat down in the flower-strewn grass, Yatol lying in front of me. It looked so wrong. The gentle swaying grasses, the color-brimmed flowers shimmering under the light, the blue-cascade trees sparkling and drifting in a soft, warm breeze…and Yatol in the midst of it all, marred and broken.

“What happened, Damian?”

Damian sat down beside me and took my hand. “When Yatol came back, none of us could talk to him. We didn’t know what had happened, except I knew you had called me to open the portal.”

“Was he angry?”

“I don’t think so. He seemed…desolate. Not angry. Certainly not at you.”

Desolate. Oh God… I covered my mouth with my other hand.

“He fought alongside us as we retreated, but there was just this look in his eyes…I don’t know what it was. Resignation, perhaps. Maybe anticipation. But Tyhlaur was so upset – he kept talking to Enhyla, and trying to talk to Yatol, but Yatol wouldn’t say anything to him. Aniira too. Until she got wounded, she and Tyhlaur were always with him. It went on like that for days. He fought so hard we were mostly just glad to have his help, but I wished I could do something for him.

“Then suddenly the Ungulion began withdrawing, not marching away, but it was like they were being torn away and dragged somewhere else. And then I heard you calling me, and Mykyl came and told me to open and guard the portal. Yatol told me that the Ungulion would be too many and too strong for me to hold the portal by myself. He said it wasn’t enough to guard this side alone. I begged him not to go, but he said, ‘It is my gift, and now is my hour.’ Onethyl went through the portal, and Mykyl carried Yatol through. You know the rest.”

“He told me once about that…gift.” I choked on the word, then said through my tears, “He told me it was a death-gift, but I never understood. Oh, Damian, if only the Brethren could bring him back now, like they did before…”

I gazed across the glade as I spoke, and saw Akhmar coming toward us. I broke down and ran to him, throwing my arms around his neck.

“Akhmar!”

“Child, look at me.”

I wavered, then turned my eyes to his.

“Do not weep for him.”

“How can you understand?” I cried, tearing away from him. “It can’t be any different for you now. But for us he’s gone! He’s gone…and I’ll never see him again.”

“But he sees you,” he said gently. His gaze shifted past me. “The others have come. Go and do him honor.”

I glanced back at them, then as I turned to say something to Akhmar, I found he was gone. And I knew without anyone telling me that it was the last time I would see him.

I returned to the others, watching them work, cold and desolate. Dad, Kurtis and Enhyla took down one of the blue-cascade trees and cut away two of its faces to reveal the satin-smooth, pewter flesh within. Mr. Dansy helped them carry it to the other side of the glade where the trees grew close and tall, and laid it between the trunks.

I thought I heard the faintest strain of music, like chimes piercing a quiet night. It almost seemed the trees bowed their sapphire heads over the length of trunk, forming a bower of starlit blue. I watched Tyhlaur bathe Yatol’s arms and face, the water streaming from his skin tinged red. When the blood had been washed away they carried him to the bier of silver wood. Enhyla had strewn handfuls of tiny flowers over it, their honey-sweet scent drifting like incense under the blue cascades.

I heard Enhyla sing, saw Tyhlaur still overwrought with grief. My dad too…his eyes shone with tears. Kurtis and Damian stood a little withdrawn, and no one paid me any attention where I sat leaning against one of the trees. I was glad of the solitude. I wondered if Yatol was, too. My eyes closed and I let myself drift in that numb, obscure space, with Enhyla’s voice weaving plaintive around me, and the wind soft on my face. When the song ended, my father bade Enhyla and Tyhlaur farewell. Footsteps shuffled past in the verdant grass, then someone took my hands in a warm clasp. I opened my eyes and found Tyhlaur kneeling before me.

I couldn’t say a word to him. But the grief in his eyes mirrored my own, and I only sat holding his gaze, trying to hold back my tears. I threw my arms around him.

“I’m so sorry,” I wept. “Be consoled, Tyhlaur.”

“And you.” He withdrew, smiling sadly at me and gripping my hands. “Farewell, Merelin.”

I watched him go, and realized that I was alone. Only Yatol remained, silent and still under a canopy of stars. I sat a while unmoving, staring at the table of living wood bathed in silver-blue light. After a moment, I crept to the bier and knelt beside it, gazing down at Yatol’s tranquil face.

“It seems so strange,” I murmured to him, the sound of my voice in the quiet jarring me. “I don’t want to go home. This is my home. Oh God, Yatol, how can I go back?” I paused, then said with sudden bitterness, “I wish I had died in K’hama, because then I could have been laid to rest here in the Branhau with you, and I’d never have to leave this place. I can’t bear the thought of going and never coming back. But…you have.” My throat closed and my vision swam. “So maybe it’s not so hard. You always gave me strength, Yatol. Give me strength now. I just wish I’d had a chance to thank you. To tell you…I love you.”

I dropped my head onto his hands, sobbing. Why wasn’t he waking up? Didn’t that always happen in the stories? I laid my hand on his cheek, brushed back the tangled strands of hair. Wake up…

Golden light washed over me, mingled with opaline blue. I wiped away my tears as I turned to see who had come. Onethyl and Mykyl. Soon they too would be lost to me.

Mykyl held out his hand. In it was the Blade of Heaven.

“Once I gave this blade to Yatol,” he said. “It was my arming dagger from the Battle of Heaven before the dawn of the universe. I give it to you now, to do with as you please.”

I hesitated before taking the blade. “He never told me what it was,” I whispered. “I’m not worthy to keep this gift, though I thank you for it with all my heart.” I turned back to the bier, placed the hilt in Yatol’s radiant palm, and pressed it against his breast. “It belongs to the man who first bore it,” I said. Whispered, “Goodbye, Yatol.”

I bent and kissed his forehead, my tears falling in his hair. Then I drew a deep breath and closed my eyes.

“I will go home now, Onethyl.”