In the Ruins Volume Six of Crown of Stars, by Kate Elliott
I
A Vision of the End
1
Along the shoreline of Osna Sound, the water receded
far out past the line of the ebb tide, exposing seabed and a line of
sharp rocks along the curve of the ridge line. Above, the sky was
a sheet of lightning that veiled the stars, but the light in the
heavens was an uncanny thing, strange and unnatural because no thunder
answered the light. A stillness - more like an indrawn breath -
had settled over the country, and it hung there, waiting.
Soon.
That silence was broken with a roar as the ground
shook and shuddered. The cart pitched over; the post to which
Alain was chained broke in half as it struck the ground. With a
groan, the stone tower of the abandoned monastery collapsed into a
cloud of dust and grit that choked him as he sprawled - like the fish
flopping in the exposed seabed - gasping for breath. Scattered by
a rising wind, the storm of dirt quickly dissipated, but the ground had
not finished shifting.
The great Dragonback Ridge splintered with a
deafening crack. Sheets of rock cascaded into the sound, and
beneath the booming clatter of rock, the earth moved as the dragon
woke. Its tail, lashing as it was freed from the soil, snapped
trees. As its flank heaved up where once lay the high ridge, dirt
avalanched seaward, obliterating the old shoreline. The creature
lifted a claw and set it down, and the ground trembled beneath that
tread. It raised its huge head to examine the heavens, then
slewed around. Chained and caught, Alain could only stare as the
head lowered down and down and paused at length before the cage to
stare at him.
With one bite it could devour cart and man
both. He struggled to his knees to face it, although it took all
his strength.
Its scales shone like gold; its eyes had the luster
of pearls. It was not untarnished from its waking: there was a
cut in its belly, and from this a tear of bright, hot blood hissed,
splashing over him. Its touch burned him to the heart, not with
heat but with truth.
My heart is the Rose. Any heart is the Rose of
Healing that knows compassion and lets it bloom.
It blinked, huffed a cloud of steam, reared its head
up, and opened its vast wings. Their span shadowed the monastery
grounds. It bunched its haunches, waited a breath, ten breaths, a
hundred breaths, as if listening, as if it too were waiting.
A wind wailed up out of the southwest, shattering
trees, and when it hit the dragon launched itself and Alain fell, never
sure if the gale or the weight of its draft had battered him
down. Its shadow passed away. Beyond, the sea raged against
the rocks. Above, the stars had gone out. All he could see
of the sky was a swirling haze mixed of dust and ash and wind and bits
of foliage and of the trailing sparks of a vast spell.
He heard still a roar of sound, building in volume,
and before he understood what it was, a wave out of the sea swept over
him. His chains held him under the water as he tumbled in its
surf, fighting for the surface. And as he drowned, he saw in a
vision the land unfolding before him. He saw as the spell tangled
and collapsed in on itself. He saw the land of the Ashioi
materialize out of the aether, back to the place it come from long ago.
He saw what happened in its wake:
All the down western shoreline of the boot of Aosta,
a ridge of volcanos shakes into life. Lava streams out of the
earth. Fields crack open, as if the pit yawns beneath. An
unstoppable tide of mud and ash slurry buries villages and the folk who
live in them. There is no warning, no time to flee.
The waters of the Middle Sea that are displaced by
the returning land speed outward in vast concentric rings. These
waves deluge distant coastlines, drowning the shore.
All along the northern sea rivers run backward and
ports are left dry as the land groans and shifts, rising no more than a
finger’s span as the weight settling in the south tilts the entire
continent.
Temblors shake the earth. The gale that
blasted across the earth dissipates in wilderness among the dumb
beasts. Deep in the earth, the goblins race through ancient
labyrinths, seeking their lost halls. Under the sea, the merfolk
dive deep to escape the maelstrom. Out in the distant grasslands,
the Horse people shelter in hollows in the land. The magic of the
Holy One shields them from the worst as it drains the life out of her.
All this he sees as he struggles in the
waters. He sees, and he understands:
Those who were most harmed in ancient days ride out
this new storm with the least damage. It is humankind who suffer
most. Perhaps Li’at’dano hoped or planned that in the end the
weaving would harm those who were the greatest threat to her people:
both the Cursed Ones and her own human allies.
Perhaps the WiseMothers suspected that humankind
would take the brunt of the backlash. Perhaps they had no choice
except to do what they did, knowing that the belt was already twisted
and the path already laid clear before their feet. They speak to
him through rock and through water, although the salt sea almost drowns
their voice.
It. Is. Done. You.
Have. Saved. Us.
He gasps for breath but swallows water, and the link
between them is broken so sharply that it is as if it had never existed.
Caught in the riptide, he came clear of the water
suddenly and flailed and gasped and choked and coughed as the tide
hauled him toward the sea but the chain jerked him back to the
ground. The cart, trapped in the fallen stones, had saved him,
which had all this time imprisoned him. He lay there, too dazed
to move.
At length daylight filtered into the haze of ash and
dust that clouded the heavens. After a long time he realized that
he was alive and that, impossibly, the world had survived. The
great weaving that Adica had made so long ago with her compatriots was
at long last finished. The spell had come all the way around and
returned to where it began. The Lost Ones had returned from their
exile.
He had seen both beginning and end, only of course
the end was now a beginning.
<line break>
After all, he was not alone in the ruins, as he had
thought. The hounds came and with them came his foster father,
Henri.
“Where are we going?” Alain asked him.
“Home, Son. We’re going home.”
<line break>
Because the path over the ridge had been obliterated
by the dragon’s waking, their way proved rough and strenuous as they
walked toward home through a jumble of boulders, fallen trees, and
tide-wracked debris. In the end Alain’s legs failed him and his
strength gave out. He could scarcely breathe. Once they
reached a real path, Henri had to carry him, stopping at intervals to
rest.
“You’re nothing but bone and skin,” Henri said one
of those times. He sat, sweating, on a smooth beech tree,
uprooted in last night’s storm. Alain wheezed, curled up on the
ground because he hadn’t the strength to sit upright. The hounds
nosed him fretfully. “You weigh no more than a child. I’ll
never forgive Lord Geoffrey for doing this to you. It’s a sin to
treat another human being so cruelly.”
He was too weak to answer. The world seemed
dim, but perhaps that was only because of clouds covering the sky.
Henri sighed. “You do stink, though,
Son. Whew!” The affection in his voice made Alain’s lips
tremble, but he could not manage a smile. For so long he had
endured. Now, safe, he thought he might at last die because he
had been worn too thin. He wanted to go on, but he had nothing
left.
“Here, now, you beasts, move aside.”
Henri hoisted him effortlessly, shifted him onto his
own back so Alain’s head rested on Henri’s shoulder, and kept
walking. It seemed likely that they should have passed through
Osna Village, but apparently Henri kept to those woodland paths that
took them around the village and onto the broad southern road.
Many trees were fallen. Branches littered the path. It was
silent, not even bird call to serenade them, and not a soul out on the
roads the morning after. Where the road forked, Henri veered to
the right along a narrower side path that wound through oak and silvery
birch, maple and beech. Long ago he had ridden down this path
with Count Lavastine. The memory seemed as a dream to him now, no
more real than his life with Adica. All gone, torn away by death.
Yet there was life here still. Some manner of
person had husbanded these woods, cutting down trees for firewood and
boat-building in many spots but fostering quick growing ash and sparing
half the slow growing oaks in others. Coppice-cut willow, hazel,
and hawthorn flourished in various states of regrowth, some freshly cut
and others ready for felling again. Sorrow barked, and pigs
squealed away into the undergrowth.
“Who’s there?” came a cry from ahead.
“I’ve found him!” cried Henri.
Alain hadn’t the strength to raise his head, so,
sidewise, he watched the estate emerge as the path opened onto
neatly-mown hayfields and a tidy garden, recently harvested. Two
corrals ringed sheep and a pair of cows. Geese honked, and
chickens scattered. There was even a horse and a pony - riches
for a free-holding family without noble forebears. Folk had come
out of the workshop and the house to stand and stare, but it was the
ones he knew best who ran up the path to meet them. Julien was
scarred and lean. Stancy was pregnant; she ran forward with a
child grasping her hand. Was that third adult little Agnes, grown
so comely and tall?
“That can’t be Alain,” said Julien. “That
creature’s nothing more than skin pulled over bones.”
“It’s him,” said Stancy. “Poor boy.” She
wiped away tears.
“Stink! Stink!” wailed the child, tugging to
break free and run. “He scares me.”
“Hush!” Aunt Bel strode up to them, looked at
him hard, and frowned. “Stancy, kill a chicken and get a broth
cooking. He’ll not be strong enough to eat real food.
Agnes, I’ll want the big basin tub for bathing him. Outside,
though. Julien, haul water and tell Bruno to heat it on the
workshop fire. We’ll need plenty. He can’t be chilled.”
Like the chickens they scattered, but to more
purpose.
“Dear God,” said Aunt Bel. “That’s a strong
smell. We’ll have to wash him twice over before we bring him
inside. I’ll have the girls make a good bed for him by the
hearth. He’ll be abed all winter, if he survives at all. He
looks more like a ghost than like our sweet lad.”
“He can hear you.”
“Can you hear me, boy?” she demanded. Because
it was Aunt Bel asking, he fluttered his eyelids and got out a croak,
not much more than a sigh. “It’s a wonder he’s still alive,
abused like that.” She made a clucking noise, quite
disgusted. “It’s a good thing you went after him, Henri.”
“Don’t let him die, Bel. I failed him once
already.”
“It’s true you let your pride get the better of
you. You were jealous.”
The movement of Henri’s shoulders, beneath Alain’s
chest, betrayed a reaction.
“Nay, there’s nothing more to be said,” retorted
Bel. “Let it be, little brother. What’s in the past is gone
with the tide. Let him be. I’ll nurse him myself. If
he lives, then we can see.”
A drop of moisture fell on Alain’s dangling
hand. At first, he thought it might be rain from those brooding
clouds, but as they trudged down into the riot of the living, he
realized that these were Henri’s tears.