and the poisons burning in his veins. He knew he had to leave, to return the Sword to the place from whence it came. He could not risk it falling into the hands of anyone else. Not so near the heart of the Vortex. Not with the possibility of some daemon or creature of evil finding it. He knew now why the gods had not wanted any to wield it.
He looked upon the corpse of Indraugnir. ‘It is a pity you cannot help me now, old friend,’ he said.
One great eye opened, and the dragon tried to bellow. Instead of its usual proud roar, its voice was a mere hiss, but it forced itself upright on weakened legs, and stood there tottering as its heart’s blood pumped forth.
‘One last flight then,’ said Aenarion and the dragon nodded as if in agreement. ‘We take the blade back to the Blighted Isle and drive it so deeply into the altar that no one will ever be able to take it out again.’
Aenarion forced himself into the saddle on the dying dragon’s back and strapped himself in. He took one last look about him at this place of destruction. Strange magic flowed all around him. The shadowy outlines of ghosts were visible in the ruins of the temple working on some great mystical pattern, performing the rites of some vast incomprehensible ritual. He tugged on the reins and the dragon leapt into the sky, soaring through the swirling clouds, climbing towards the sun.
The winds of magic howled beneath Indraugnir’s wings as he and his dying rider flew into legend.
N’Kari the Keeper of Secrets looked out from within the newly born Vortex and watched Aenarion depart. He was lucky to be alive and he knew it. The weapon the Phoenix King had carried was potent even beyond the imagining of daemons.
Never in all his aeons-long existence had N’Kari experienced anything like this. He was reduced to the barest nub of sentience, a thing little greater than a maggot or a human, barely aware of its own existence. He had only just managed to escape from Aenarion by casting himself within the roaring magical energies summoned by the elven archmages and hiding there. And he was barely a shadow of what he had been. The Sword had weakened him greatly, in some way he still did not quite understand.
Still, all he had to do was escape and his power would regrow as it always did.
He willed himself elsewhere, trying to plunge into the great Realm of Chaos to bathe in its eternally renewing energies. Nothing happened. He could not escape.
Rage and something else he did not quite recognise filled his mind. Perhaps it was fear. He was trapped within the huge spell the elves had cast. It was preventing him from departing this world for his own.
Even now, some vague sense of self-preservation warned him to keep still, to do nothing, to gather his strength. Around him were beings of awful power, the ghosts of the archmages who had given their lives to weave this spell. They were weaving it still.
His encounter with Aenarion had left him so weakened that he would have no chance if one of those terrible ghosts were to turn its attention on him and the small flaw in the vast matrix of spells he occupied. They could squash him from existence with the barest effort of their will.
It was painful and humiliating for N’Kari to admit his plight to himself, but it had been a long time since he had enjoyed these sensations and he determined to make the best of it.
Now he needed a plan, a way to escape from this enormous trap of a spell without the ghosts noticing him. He needed to wait and husband his power and let his strength regrow until he was himself again.
He did not doubt that it was possible, that he would get out of this place. He was a daemon. Time had little meaning for him, even the strangely altered flow of time within the Vortex. As long as he was careful and did not draw attention to himself he would survive, and he would work out a way to be free.
Then he would enjoy another sensation – vengeance on Aenarion and all of his blood.
CHAPTER ONE
There are those who express wonder that Aenarion was never told that Morelion and Yvraine, his children by the Everqueen, survived. It might have changed the whole course of elven history if he had known.