“What is it?”
Lionen’s face tensed in consternation and Vaelin realised he was fumbling for words to describe something even he didn’t fully understand. “A box,” he said finally. “Box full . . . of everything, and nothing.”
“Your sister fears it.”
Lionen nodded. “Essara sees great danger in this. Her husband great . . . use.”
“And you?”
“I see you, and it.” His gaze tracked to Erlin. “And him . . . But he is not him when he touches it.”
His face clouded and he turned towards the city, now bathed in a faint orange glow as the sun began to descend below the western mountains. “In your time . . . this place is gone, yes?”
“Yes. Brought to ruin many ages before.”
Lionen lowered his gaze, features dark with sorrow. “I . . . hope I see it wrong.” He took a breath and straightened. “If . . . I see you again. Bring . . . happy words.”
“Wait.” Vaelin reached for Lionen as he began to walk away, though of course his hand made no purchase. “You have knowledge I need. We face a great danger . . .”
“I know,” Lionen replied with a shrug. “I . . . face danger too.”
Vaelin caught a glimpse of his face before the memory broke apart once more, his half grin returned for an instant, then sublimed into mist as the vortex swirled.
“What did he mean?” he demanded of Erlin.
“I wish I knew, brother,” the ancient man replied. “But I suspect we have now ventured far beyond the limits of my knowledge.”
This time the vortex coalesced into a scene of chaos, the city burnt and tumbled around them, accompanied by the screams of thousands in torment. Vaelin ducked instinctively as a thunderous tremor shook the stone beneath his feet, his gaze immediately drawn to the tower, standing tall and glorious in the night sky, but only for a moment. The ground shook again and the tower fell, its stone flanks bent like a bow as it tumbled to earth, shattering the houses beneath in an explosion of stone and flame.
Vaelin went to the edge of the platform, drawing up in shock at the horrors unfolding below. A woman staggered through the streets with a headless child in her arms, face blank with madness. A portly man in a long robe ran past her, screaming in fear, chased down and dismembered in seconds by a group of men in red armour, laughing gleefully as their swords rose and fell in a joyous frenzy.
Vaelin’s eyes roved the dying city, finding scenes of slaughter and torment everywhere, Sella’s words from years before coming back to him, They had lived in peace for generations and had no warriors, so when the storm came they were naked before it.
It raged on for an hour or more, the city tumbling down around them as its people died. The men in the red armour were inventive in their cruelties, delighting in the screams of those they raped or flayed, though apart from their laughter they were mute killers, going about their bloody work with no words exchanged.
“What are they?” Vaelin asked in a whisper.
“In time the people who will build the Volarian Empire will call them the Dermos,” Erlin said. “Imagining them the product of some fiery pit beneath the earth. When they’re done here they will cross the ocean to assail every place they can find where humanity resides, birthing legends and gods in the process.” Erlin pointed to something in the smoke-shrouded streets below. “Their onslaught will continue until the one who commands them falls.”
The figure moved through the carnage without seeming to notice it, stepping over corpses and striding through pooled blood in a steady, untroubled stride. The red-armoured men moved aside at his approach, not in respect, for they made no bows or other show of obeisance, but as if in answer to an unspoken command. Once he had passed they would return to their ghastly amusements without a glance in his direction. His face became clear as he neared the platform steps, pausing to gaze upwards, brow so deeply lined now it appeared scarred, the glow of a thousand fires flickering on the grey of his beard.
He grimaced as he began to climb, his legs stiff and back stooped from the effort. On reaching the platform he paused, issuing a loud, weary groan, then glanced back at the chaos below. The expression on his aged face was one Vaelin knew all too well. The one who commands them, he thought, seeing the hungry malice that twisted the bearded man’s features.
“He did this,” Vaelin realised aloud. “He destroyed his own city.”