The Last Guardian of Everness (War of the Dreaming 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

motionless bosom.
    He whispered to himself, “Devil or fairy or whatever you are! If shewould not agree, I will. Kill whomever you needs must kill. I want my wife to live.”
    Raven’s nape hairs prickled. A sudden certainty that he was being watched made him fear to turn or move.
    From behind him, a cold voice uttered the words, “So be it.

 
    3
     
    City

at the

World’s Edge
     
    I
     
    A time before (but it cannot be measured whether it was a long time or a short, there in that timelessness) armored in gleaming silver mail, spear in hand, a young man stood upon the dark, gigantic stones of the wall between the waking and the dreaming worlds, head thrown back, helmet scarves flowing down across his neck and shoulders, eyes shining, and, with a powerful, clear voice, he sang his song into the stars.
     
    Daughter of Eurynome,
    Who soars as far as dreams can reach;
    A titan made an oath to me,
    And by his blood, I thee beseech.
     
    I call as he called once, in need,
    For wings to top Olympic height;
    His crime divine made thee my steed;
    My soul still holds those fires bright!
     
    My soul, immortal as is thine,
    Bound in clay, confounded, yet divine,
    Doomed to die, but dreams Eternity,
    Still recalls what calls thee now to me.
     
    As he sang, there came a motion in the deep, wide darkness of heaven as like a falling star, a bright meteor of diamond light, which swelled in his vision. And he saw a flying creature coming forward out of that light, graceful and swift as an antelope, bold as a war-trained stallion in his strength, yet more delicate than a fawn. The light was all around her as she fled toward him across the wave crests of the sea, out from the sea of darkness, with her hoofs wetted on the surging foam, dancing on the waves above the circle of light she shed, and where that light touched, the blackness of the waves was turned briefly emerald, deep, translucent.
    In a moment of wonder the dream-colt rode the boisterous tide crashing up the iron wall, to leap lightly down before the laughing young man, surrounded by glittering spray, with stardust still tangled in her trailing mane.
    “I have forgotten who I am,” said the young man, who had lost himself in the enchantment and strong beauty of her coming.
    “It is one of the dangers of the dreaming, from which I am oath bound to shield you, my beloved,” she said, and she told him his name, calling him the youngest of those loyal to the light.
    Her voice was like an exultation of strings and woodwinds. “Remember also, son of the race sprung from Adam and Titania, that I am bound to carry you whereso you will, whether to some star remote, or worlds far lostin the scope of endless night, or across the gulf of time to aeons unrecalled, or further, whether into realms and dreams yet unimagined. Mount, and say where you will go. Yet above the sphere of the fixed stars I may not carry you; unyielding law forbids.”
     
    II
     
    Gently, Galen Waylock laid his hand on her mane, and the softness of her long, starlight-colored hairs delighted his fingers. “I have also forgotten why I have called you. But I remember my pride has called me to this adventure, and the knowledge that I must do something worthy to be a man.”
    And then he heard a slow, deep bell tolling far out across the waste of the waves, and Galen remembered.
    “I must find the road to Tirion, where the founder of our Order is being punished.”
    “We call him Azrael. He is beyond the world’s edge, beyond safety and sanity and starlight; I may not take you there.”
    But Galen showed no impatience or despair, but stood in quiet thought; for he was wise in the lore of dreaming, and to remember forgotten things was the soul and secret of his art.
    He recited: “Four are the citadels which guard the land, beneath four moons and Oberon’s command. In all moons Everness, on which Man’s Earth relies; the High House unchanging beneath changing skies. In full light, Celebradon to Autumn