Free Veil of the Dragon (Prophecy of the Evarun) by Tom Barczak

his own youth, or that of Baelus, Chaelus thought, lost to the changes thrust upon them. “It does nothing.”
     
    “You don’t think he belongs among us. That he’s a child and not a knight.”
     
    Chaelus didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He ascended the broken stair. Pieces of stone, freed by his passage, plummeted into the depths beneath and to whatever answers lay hidden there.
     
    “Wait,” Al-Thinneas called.
     
    The stairway stopped at a small landing overlooking the open remains of what had once been a round hall. It looked like his own hall, the hall of his father, in the tower his father had been given as a Servian Lord. Only the sky existed above these ruins now and even the deeper forest held its branches short of the ancient walls, as if in respect of its hallowed ground. 
     
    Staircases led down to the left and to the right, curving along the walls that remained, but the one on the right had already collapsed at its base. A large fire burned from a pit in the center of the hall. Al-Aaron lay still beside it. An old woman in robes knelt with him. Twelve stone seats ringed them like guardians. Behind her, the three Tenders stood respectfully distant. Torches, burning from sconces, added still more light, turning the night below into the semblance of day.
     
    Even from where Chaelus stood distant the woman’s face was familiar, betrayed by the lines upon it, carved out of misery itself long ago. She had known his father and she had come to his father, less young but just as aged, while he, then a boy, hid behind the curtains and watched them; three visitors cloaked in black, Servian Knights with cloth-bound swords at their sides.
     
    They had asked his father to honor a promise he had made to them, and to Chaelus’ mother, long before. His father, however, had refused them.
     
    “I’ve seen her before.” 
     
    “She’s our Mother,” Al-Thinneas replied. “Her name is Olivia and she’s the Matron of our order.”
     
    “She grieves for him,” Chaelus said.
     
    “Yes, for his suffering, but also for what he’s done.”
     
    Amidst the few shadows that remained small groups of people gathered, women among them, and the men were only men by the thinnest of years.  Their hushed whispers carried across the night air. Along with their dress, the gathered Servian Knights betrayed the many lands of their origin. Their gossamer-bound swords hung openly at their sides and, one by one as they turned to watch him, their whispers ceased.
     
    “No,” Chaelus said. “He’s a child who’s done nothing to deserve this. He raised me from my death, even as death claims his own, this Servian Order made up of women and children.”
     
    Al-Thinneas turned away. “We once numbered in the thousands. Since our exile, we’ve fallen to several score. Now that the Hunting has returned again, we will number fewer still. It’s why we gather for the Synod, so that our fate can be decided.”
     
    “Your fate is that soon there will be none of you left,” Chaelus said.
     
    Al-Thinneas smiled. “I don’t think so. Our path is eternal, provided we pass on our Story, each one of us to the next.”
     
    “Your Story?”
     
    “Our Story - of our death, of how we were saved, and of who we came to be.”
     
    Chaelus hung upon Al-Thinneas’ words, unsure.
     
    Al-Thinneas’ smile broadened. “You’ll find that there are many different kinds of death.”
     
    Chaelus remembered the strength of Al-Aaron’s voice as he called to him from beyond his tomb. To what end had Al-Aaron, a child, suffered to come here? Or, for that matter, Al-Mariam, who had only just held her blade against him, her oath to her Order lost beneath her fear of him?
     
    “Whether it be of a man, woman or a child,” Chaelus murmured.
     
    Al-Thinneas descended the stairs the way they had come. Chaelus hesitated, then followed. At the base of the steps a narrow path led away, around the foot of the mount. Beyond it, the way widened