Chapter 49. Whole

e was running, too afraid to gaze behind him and too panicked to stop. Heart racing, Pendaran took the steps to Zhou’s study three at a time, nearly flying as he reached the corridor stained in dappled light. The door was open and his Master faced him stripped down to loose black pantaloons, a sigil carved into his breast weeping blood.

“I tried to stop him. I did not want to betray you.”

“In your weakness, you must find your strength.”

“I’m sorry, Zhou.”

“Do not apologize. You did what you believed to be right. Farewell, my friend.”

“Beg him to come to you. He must!” Ashekoroth howled.

“I’m sorry, Pendaran, I’m so sorry, my brother.”

He could no longer feel the magical bond that connected them as a Lyssan pair. He was utterly alone. As alone as he had ever been in the darkness below Tahnnaki. As alone as the miserable creature he had become in the wasteland of sundered Ascalon. His head still rang from the long torment of Ashekoroth. The demon would not be satisfied until he was utterly broken.

Naked and helpless, he lay curled on his side, the stone beneath him chilling him to the bone. A fine silvery chain linked ankles and wrists, an excessive measure given he could not stand nor walk without a cane. There was no where to run. The tight confines of his prison pressed in on him, curved walls arching a mere hand’s breadth above his shoulder and hips so that he could not even sit up. Entombed within the silken curve of glassy stone, he could not move even if he had been capable of doing so. And even though he was utterly alone and no one would hear his final cries, a gag was thrust between his teeth. His magic was lost to him.

Doomed, he lay there awaiting his fate. He had not bargained on dying this way, pathetic and shivering under the thumb of an omnipotent demon. It seemed a waste after the long painful struggle to overcome what should have been a fatal injury. Perhaps it would have been better for all concerned if he had gone quietly beneath the assassins’ blades surrounded by his loved ones.

“Don’t let it all have been in vain. You were spared and now you must honor all that was done to save your life. Zhou loves you, never doubt that. If he had to detach, there was good reason.”

Tears pooled upon the slick stone beneath his cheek. Pendaran searched for the anger necessary to see him through this valley of despair. But he was exhausted and empty. In the darkness there was only the soft slap and sough of water gnawing the edges of consciousness. He was alone.

“I don’t want to die here. I want to lie in Teleri’s arms. I want to see my daughter. I want to live. Please Lyssa, I beg of you to inspire me with hope, wrap me in your beauty. Dwayna, grant me mercy. I am weak, I need you. Don’t let me die here in the darkness lost and alone.”

‘Then pray to Melandru, for it is by her grace alone that you might be saved,” said a strange woman into his mind.

He blinked at the green glow that suffused the stone where formerly it had been black and lightless. The slick stone beneath him was translucent and fractured. It had a glassy quality for the light shafted through it, revealing trapped bubbles of air and tiny impurities. Once liquid, there were still ripples in its midst, moments in time forever frozen in stone. Living, breathing creatures petrified by the breath of the Jade Wind drifted in lifeless currents.

Pendaran had never looked upon the Jade Sea. He had heard tales of it and longed to travel into Luxon lands to see it for himself. Now he lay within a piece of it, a pocket carved and smoothed within a vast slab of shimmering jade. Curled within a small hemisphere of lucid stone, he saw no immediate means of escape. The verdant light flowed from below, from deep within the heart of the murdered sea. The slick floor of the tiny space vibrated like the tolling of a vast bell.

“Time to die, Pendaran. You are of no further use to me. I offer you instead to the Queen of the Sea. My bride to be.”

Ashekoroth had returned, but only to gloat. Pendaran closed his eyes in anticipation of pain. He had saved Teleri and Mabane. He had not betrayed Zhou. His only regret was for Brigit and he was resigned to the fact that he had done everything he could to prevent her death. She had chosen to fight for him and so he must respect her free will.

The grief and sadness of his short life fell away and he remembered instead its joy and beauty. He received a last gift from his matron goddess, a song that poured through him and wrapped him in its tender refrain. He would go from the world in beauty, a friend to the giving earth and the loving gaze of the sun and stars. How lucky he had been to know love in his final days.

A salty burst of water surged through a narrow opening and spilled into the small chamber. The returning tide would flood the little space and he would die like the myriad creatures in the jade, breathless and trapped. He fought against panic as the chill water curled around legs and shivered along the mild incline of the floor toward his hands. Once more a foaming thrust of the sea sluiced down into his prison. He vaguely remembered being lowered through that shaft. There had been a short slide down into the lurid green darkness as his head frothed with pain.

“Beg to live,” Ashekoroth said into his mind, “Quickly, before you drown.”

“I surrender, but I will not beg. I am not afraid.”

“You tremble in fear.”

“My body is afraid, but I am not. I will die whole.”

And he closed his eyes, allowing the tolling music to wash over him with each successive thrust of the sea. The chill water slapped his chin and washed away his tears. He did not want to die, but now that he had no choice, he would greet it as a mercy and a friend. Heartbreak and torment, grief and loneliness were afflictions of the flesh. Soon he would be free of them. But he would always have love.