#slenuma

Why do we trust him, Atlas says to Arepo, who just smiles.

I have a good feeling, that’s all.

Atlas’ ears pick up every sound around them, heightened by fear.  The vultures feeding on carrion.  The shrieking of feral Mirrors.  Slenuma’s quiet footfalls.  The clank and clang of the army trudging behind them, far enough away they can’t see them, but close enough to hear.

Where are you taking us?  Slenuma doesn’t answer.  When will we get there?

Soon.  The Mirror’s voice is less than a croak, just a suggestion on the wind.  For some reason, that just scares Atlas more.

Atlas has never been to Plague before.  Even his refuge in Shadow was short lived.  He’s lived his whole life in Light.  He’s been nothing but faithful.  Why, after all this time serving his Lady, had he turned to readily on his breed?  It’s not his fault, the way he was born.

This?  This was his fault.  A act of rage and heartache.  He looks at the book in his hands and nearly drops it to the parched earth, so that the army can find it and pick it up and he’ll never see it again.  But what does that mean for dragonkind?  It would be selfish now, for him to abandon the book.  The warplans inside speak of genocide, and Atlas will not be responsible for it.

They’ve been walking for ages, it feels like.  Atlas can feel the hard ground all the way up to his knees, but Arepo seems unfazed, and Slenuma hasn’t changed the beat of his step.  But now, the Wyrmwound rises up from the horizon, sickly white, the smell of death closing around Atlas’ windpipe.

No, he says.  Slenuma stops, and looks at him with crimson eyes.  Arepo looks uncertain as well.  But Slenuma just stands, calm to the point of unnerving, unmoving, silent.  No one moves, and the sound of chainmail and warcries echoes across the unforgiving flatness of the Wastes.  Though Slenuma doesn’t speak, it becomes clear what he means; Atlas can either follow him, or perish at the hands of the Lightweaver.

Atlas steps forward first, his legs shaking, and as soon as he does Slenuma turns and trots ahead, like a hound dog on the scent of an injured kill.  Arepo stays very close to Atlas’ side, his face stoic and his footfalls controlled and quiet.

The closer they get to the Wyrmwound, the more at peace Atlas becomes with his death.  He was going to die at the hands of a silent Mirror on the edges of the Wyrmwound, far away from home, or he was going to die by the hands of the Lady he loves so dearly.  Arepo, while not talkative, has gone mute as stone, and Atlas has to try not to cry.  He did all this because he wanted to live.

But as they get closer, Atlas realizes that they’re not going towards a path.  The fear melts away.  And then he hears the noise.

He must have been too scared to notice it before, because the shrieking is something pulled out of a nightmare.  Hellish howling fills the air, crazed cackling and screams of rage.  It’s so overwhelming Atlas cowers, folding his wings in tight, lowering himself to the ground in terror.

Oh, Eleven, no, he gasps, but the sun in glinting off the breastplates now, the light shielding the soldiers from sight.  But Arepo puts both hands behind Atlas’ wing and pushes, says nothing, eyes wide enough to show the whites.  Slenuma sits, waits, that insufferable calm, and Atlas refuses to budge.  He can see the Mouth of Hellreek, its glittering white teeth, smelling of death, sounding like a torture pit.

This is our only salvation, Arepo says, please.  They won’t follow us here.

The Guardian, Ruzo (he knows the name, because Light told stories of these animals, these fiends, to ensure order and obedience, and not once until now has Atlas broken the rules) is dozing, cracks an eye and stares down at Atlas as he passes by behind Slenuma.  He doesn’t even glance at Arepo, but lifts and turns his head to watch Atlas and it shakes him all the way down to his bones.

Inside, it’s so dark, and the smell is so harsh Atlas vomits on the floor.  During his retching he loses Slenuma entirely, the dark Mirror blending in with the red rock.  The sound is deafening, the howling making his ears ring, the shrieks drilling right into his skull.  When Atlas gathers his wits enough to take in his surroundings, his blood runs cold.  There are Mirrors, hundreds of them, all staring.  But there’s one that commands his attention, her face covered, her eyes the colour of sick blood, hellish pits of almost black.

When she approaches, he throws himself at her feet.

What have you done, she says, and it’s a low snarl that he feels more than hears.  He chokes.

I’ve either saved or damned us all.

-

They wait.  The days pass.  The most they hear of the army is the clink of armour and fearful wingbeats.  It is on the third day that Ruzo tells them the army has gone.  And it is the third day that Atlas tells Akeelah of his story.  That he served as the Lightweaver’s bodyguard, how he loved her more than love itself and then she scorned him, told him he was a mistake.  How he stole her warplans in a minor scuffle and then stole away to Shadow, where he was tracked.  How he met Arepo on the way there and Slenuma on the way out.  How scared he is, clutching the book, looking into the eyes of a beast whom he has only heard horror stories about.

Okay, says Akeelah.  Okay.  Stay.

It’s three days after that that Ruzo tells Akeelah there’s something on the horizon.  A twisting mass of light.  He doesn’t have to tell her that it’s the Lightweaver, scorned.  Her bellows can be heard across the Wasteland, over the voices of her own family.

Oh, please, please can be heard over the rest, Atlas clutching the book, mumbling something that would have been a prayer not even a moon ago.  He’s vibrating, the magic stuck to his wings pulsing with Her light.  Akeelah would pray if she had any love for her Mother.  Her lair is all she cares about, but she doubts she can fight off a goddess herself.  She’s about to try, when a soft hand touches her shoulder and doesn’t crumble away.  She turns to see Fegult, his round face determined.

Let me try? he says, like she’d deny him.

Of course.

And Fegult teeters to the Mouth, ducks through the gaps in the teeth.  Akeelah watches but does not follow.  She filters out Atlas’ wailing and the cries of her children, and sits just in the darkness, close enough to spring out but far enough away to stay hidden.  He watches her beloved perch on his haunches just outside the Mouth, his face turned skyward, with no tension in him.

When the Lightweaver comes, it is like all the light in the world has collected itself in one spot.  The lair, dark and deep for centuries, is lit up, every cavern swallowed whole by light.  Akeelah has to hide her eyes, a hiss escaping her.  The rest of the lair explodes in a cacophony of noise, scrambling claws and yelps.  The Lightweaver doesn’t speak a language that Akeelah knows, so old it would have turned to dust in her mouth had she tried to speak it.  But the ringing, it gets louder, and then suddenly She is gone.  The darkness she leaves behind is all encompassing, and Akeelah fears for one irrational second that she has gone blind.

Fegult comes back, dazed, his pupils blown wide, glimmering with light.

What did you do? Akeelah asks, and Fegult looks at her like he’s seeing her for the first time.  He shakes his head.

Nothing.  I did nothing.

-

In the pits of Hellreek, something shakes.  It’s nothing like an earthquake.  It sounds like the creaking of old bones and feels like the restless shift of muscle.

What was that? Ramiro says.  Mariette levels him with a look, and it’s the first time he’s ever seen anything close to fear in her eyes.