Chương 53: The Red Lament

Red wings beat against the violet night. A shadow swept over a column of beaten fiends from the Cohort of Chaos and cast their ragged line into darkness. The soldiers halted, petrified with fright. When doom passed over, even the Legionnaires shuddered with relief. From the clouds, Sy the Red Lament watched the Cohort cower from the corner of an all-red eye. His crimson maw cracked in a bloody smile. How droll would it be if he were to circle back and destroy them, after all?

Just a morsel of comedy before the coming feast. In the end, their very failure preserved the fools. If the losers were not so pathetic and few, Sy might have slain them all. The night was young, a better target would come. Sy flew on and swallowed leagues with each beat of his wings. The Red Lament sailed over the razor ridges of the Glastlund, soared over the black rivers and smoking fissures of the Ebanevin, and climbed above the Daggerback Mountains. High in the hinterland, he spied a secret.

Hidden from below by ridges and forests, highlanders had built a string of villages along a swift-running stream. Sy was intrigued. How the villagers must have trembled, peering down the mountain as the armies of Chaos marched past unaware! It was a minor miracle they'd survived, but that was over now. Sy circled over the highest village, a ring of tidy cottages built around a burbling spring. All were asleep in their beds and barns. Crimson fangs flashed—a gallows laugh in the way of the Drakes.

Sy did not know this tiny hamlet's name and would not have cared if he had. He drew a breath that could have snuffed a wildfire and let it curdle in his gut. He flew low over the village and blew out a great plume of cadmium dust. That was enough. Whatever the breath of the Red Lament touched was doomed. Grapes rotted on the vine, wheat wilted, and melons split and burst. Flocks died in their pens, birds fell from branches, and villagers bloated and choked in their beds.

Even the worms in the earth broke from the loam, thrashed, and died in the cold night air. Sy flew away with bloody tranquility in his wake. The farmsteads were silent now; nothing would ever grow there again. The stream would carry his message down the mountain. The hapless highlanders might have lived there for centuries, hidden from the woes of the world. In a month's time, they would all be dead. They were just the beginning. His appetite for ruin was sated, for now.

Sy's thoughts turned to his favorite topic: himself. The Carnelian Drake had a thousand names, given by a thousand dead races. The first of them was Sy the Red Lament. He was older than the Elves, older than the stones, even older than the bones of the Titans that hid beneath the bedrock. Sy was Firstborn of the World Drakes and the fiercest, by far. When his siblings squabbled and began the armageddon that cracked the continents and boiled the seas, it was Sy who triumphed and subjugated them all.

Rivers coursed in the ruts of his talons, the four winds whirled from his wings. It was Sy's will that shaped the newmade world, and Sy's breath that scorched the dawn and singed the sunset. When the end of days came, Sy would fly out across the void and swallow the dying sun to start the cycle anew. He hoped it would be soon. On his flight, Sy saw the land ravaged and warped. Chaos pervaded in a way it would never have dared while he reigned. For an astonishing span, Sy was Tyrant of the world entire.

It was Sy who drove the tiny progeny of the Titans back into their caves, made them his slaves, and demanded ruinous tribute. He pitted his siblings against each other and kept them in check, so their energies were squandered in useless rivalries. All was in accord, for the Arc entire moved in tune with his movements. The creatures who pleased him flourished. Those who did not were eradicated entirely. The tides sighed onto the shore when he woke and fled as he slept.

If not for his jealous kin, the Red Lament would have ruled forever. Each sibling dreamed of supremacy. In a great convocation, the World Drakes came to Sy and demanded a new order. The land would be split into seven, so each might claim a domain. Sy refused. Sagely, he explained to his siblings that they were fractious and short-sighted. Without his terrible rule, the two-legged lice would rise and multiply across the land. Once they were established, they would become a threat.

Even six against one, they did not dare to attack him. The cowards flew away and each worked a different angle to betray him. Each sibling cultivated a race of bipeds, bent them to their desires, and formed them into armies. They showed their pets how to make weapons and wield them in war. They taught their generals the secrets of magic. Six World Drakes and their armies surrounded Sy's lair and attacked. There would never be another battle like it. The great energies unleashed tore the weave and cracked the world.

Mountains fell, great rivers changed course, and terrible volcanoes coughed brimstone and blackened the sky. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Six against one, Sy was still the first, and the fiercest. His red breath decimated legions. Rivers of blood gushed beneath each sweep of his terrible claws. The Drakes attacked in twos and threes. They were beaten back with terrible wounds. In his rage, Sy might have slaughtered them all.

Yet the fiercest of the Drakes was the wisest as well. The Red Lament foresaw himself as the lone ruler of an empty world, waiting in a great, gray bore for the last grain to run out of the hourglass. It was no victory at all. Sy had a greater plan. He let his siblings escape and offered them an age of grace to lick their wounds. If even one was wise enough to see things his way, they might have all been saved. Alas, none could comprehend his vision. His bitter kin rebuilt their armies, twice as big as before.

To get what they wanted, the lesser Drakes would gladly crack the world in half. But Sy would not oblige. He flew north and sat atop the pole of the world. Around himself, he wrapped the ley in an invincible egg of energy. No matter what they tried, the other World Drakes could not break through. Soon, his siblings realized his design. Their great armies could not forage in the frozen waste. Sy could wait them out, safe in his egg, until their fragile alliance cracked apart.

What the World Drakes could not break, they buried. Together, Sy's six siblings sealed the invincible egg in a great vault of soul-deadening lead that no sorcery could break. They locked it with an ingenious amber key and then piled great boulders until a mountain towered atop the prison. They built a great fortress to guard the approach to the pole and called it Lastgate. Thus, they hoped to contain the Red Lament forever. Ten thousand years passed, a wink to a World Drake.

With grim satisfaction, Sy slumbered and watched the world unravel in his dreams. All that he foretold came to pass. The World Drakes were surpassed and hid away in the earth, afraid of their own creations. As Sy warned, two-legged vermin covered the earth and despoiled it. With no tyrant to keep them in check, the rats skittered to the whispering rift and gnawed at the fabric of all. Fiends slipped through, aided by the human fools.

Time and time again, the summoners grew old and weak, but the demons remained the same. The rift widened, and the Black Princes seeped in. Eager for an alliance, the devils tapped upon Sy's prison and whispered into his carnelian dreams. They made promises, each more lavish than the last. Sy never replied, he had no need for their crooked deals. His interests might align with the devils briefly, but an alliance of tyrants could never last. Only one could truly rule; it ought to be Sy.

The fickle devils could only squabble and topple each other in an endless wheel. The Red Lament was forever. Always, Sy knew his time would arrive. His bloody deeds would slip into legend. Someday, a mortal would come, bearing the key. They would be vain enough to think they could master the greatest of the Drakes and fool enough to set him free. Sy only had to wait. The day came yesterday. Sy was roused by a rift between the realms. Two travelers emerged from a thousand leagues away.

Sy sensed the presence of the Amber Key. Wisely, Hymionier opened a hair-thin crack into the prison, barely enough to barter by. An all-red eye peered through. Sy was surprised to see a boy standing beside the Rune King.

"Go away," Sy warned. At once, he recognized the shadow of Abaxios Oslune on the apprentice's soul. Sy had dealt with Oslune before. He decided to wait a few more centuries for a better opportunity. Oslune would not go away. He made his case in that laughable child's voice. Sy could not help but listen and become intrigued. That was the trouble with Oslune. The Reconciler could barter with the gods themselves. Though Sy had been burned before, he could not help but salivate. The deal was so very ripe.

"Why would you make this bargain, Abaxios?" Sy's crimson eye slitted with suspicion.

"You know what I am. You offer me half the world, knowing that in due time, I will surely come for the rest. Why?"

"Time is why. I can save half or lose all. If the horde takes the Bore, nothing can stop them. The Black Princes are already working to corrupt Blakabaa Ba'ah. If he won't dance to their tune, they'll stage a coup and install one of their creatures. They won't even bother to march south and destroy Anvillan. They will simply come north, crack Lastgate, and tear open the rift to let the Black Princes in. This is how the world will end." It was true. Sy had waited too long. He'd nearly slept through the final act.

"You were always too clever, Abaxios. I'll make no mistakes this time. Once I defeat your enemy, you are next," Sy promised.

"I know. I must trade the doom of today for the hope we can stop you tomorrow." Sy laughed so hard that the Windsworn could feel the ground quake all the way in Lastgate. He took the deal.