The Ember Blade

by Chris Wooding

  ‘Wonderful!’ he cried, and he rose to his feet, forcing everyone to rise with him. ‘Encore! Play another!’

  Edgen beamed with delight at the honour. He bowed low and turned back to the troupe. ‘“The Mountain Man’s Jig”!’ he cried. ‘One, two, three—’

  Orica struck her chord and the pipes began to play, but horror was growing in her heart. Her fellow musicians’ smiles were nightmarish rictuses, the tune jarring and discordant to her ear.

  He wants more? How many more? How long will he have us play?

  Somewhere in the dark, the water was rising.

  Mara saw their chance when the prince got to his feet. ‘Now,’ she said to Harod.

  Harod had been watching raptly, his eyes fixed on Orica. He shook out of his trance as the audience around him rose, clapping enthusiastically in imitation of Prince Ottico. Even those who didn’t care for the music were pretending to be impressed. Mara gave Harod a gentle shove to get him moving, and he began to blunder his way along the row, squeezing his large frame between the applauding guests.

  Then Mara heard the prince call for more, and the troupe struck up another tune. The applause died away and the audience began to seat themselves again, stripping Harod of his cover before he reached the end of the row.

  Seeing him leaving, a servant hurried to intercept him. Mara couldn’t hear what was said, but the servant’s raised hands and urgent muttering didn’t bode well.

  Let him pass, Mara thought fiercely. It was imperative that they stayed beneath the notice of their hosts, and every moment Harod was delayed drew more eyes towards him.

  But the servant wouldn’t let him pass. Mara saw Harod put his hand on his belly, miming sickness, but the servant only gestured back towards Harod’s empty seat, apologetic but insistent.

  Everybody behind them was watching their quiet argument. People nearby scowled and tutted, distracted by their voices. One of the guards stationed at the side of the hall stirred at his post, wondering if he needed to intervene.

  Let him pass! Mara thought again, more urgently. She knew what the encore meant. Their already fine margins were narrowing fast, and Orica was still tied up with her performance. Harod had to get to that door in the sewers. But if any more fuss were made, then some officious attendant would be forced to take him aside and deal with him, reducing his chances of slipping away to nil.

  In the front row, the prince turned and looked over his shoulder, an irritable frown on his face. The servant saw him and blanched. ‘Please, Sar, you must!’ he said, almost begging now. The guard began to walk over and Harod was forced to concede. With one last indignant comment, he made his way back along the row, running the gauntlet of disapproving stares and tuts. He must have been mortified by the ordeal, but his face was rigid and he didn’t so much as blush as he sat down.

  ‘They would not let thee leave?’ Mara whispered.

  ‘Nay,’ he said. ‘The prince considers himself a great patron of the arts, it seems, and believes that to leave in the midst of a performance shows disrespect to the performer. No such disrespect is permitted in his presence.’

  Mara cursed herself silently. How had she not known that? It wasn’t in Yarin’s notes, but that was no excuse; she should have researched it herself. It was only a small detail, easily overlooked amid the mass of other information she’d absorbed, but small details could topple empires and cost lives. She thought she’d considered every angle, but she’d missed this one. Now all three of them were trapped in the same hall, and still the music played on, counting out the remainder of their companions’ lives beat by beat by beat.

  Fen hunkered down low in the boat. She had no choice. The roof of the cavern was so close, she couldn’t sit up any longer.

  Black water below them, hard rock above, the six of them sandwiched in the thinning layer between. Cade’s lantern rested on the floor of the boat, casting its light over their frightened faces. There was desperate hope in their eyes, each of them alert for any intervention which could save them; but it was becoming ever clearer that there might not be any salvation. And soon there wouldn’t be any air.

  Don’t lean on anyone or anything, Fen. Not no place or person. Elsewise, when they fall, you’ll fall with ’em.

  No. She wouldn’t let herself believe that. Orica and Harod and Mara would come through. They had to.

  Vika was praying to Joha, bent over in a forced bow, her mouth moving and her eyes closed. Ruck huddled beside her. Cade was praying, too, but Grub was becoming panicked, his eyes wild, palms on the ceiling as if he could fend it off.

  Aren’s hand sought Fen’s and gripped it. She met his gaze. Scared as he was, she found strength there.

  ‘They’ll be here,’ he said.

  She loved him a little for that, for making her believe. There was something indomitable in him which wouldn’t lie and down and die. Sometimes she was amazed by it. Amazed by him. She wanted to kiss him, hold him frantically tight, push away the terror of death with passion. But the thought paralysed her, and she could do nothing but offer a wan smile of thanks.

  ‘Nobody’s coming,’ Grub muttered. Then, louder: ‘Nobody’s coming!’ His voice became a shriek. ‘Grub not ready to meet the Bone God! Grub not want to be Unremembered! Grub sorry for what he did! Grub sorry!’

  ‘Pipe down, you noisy bastard!’ Cade snapped angrily, lashing out with his own fear.

  But Grub wasn’t listening. He tried to get to his feet but only pressed up against the ceiling, rocking the boat alarmingly. ‘Can’t stay here! Grub swim for it! Swim back to the lake!’

  ‘Don’t be a mudwit! You’ll never make it!’

  ‘Grub can’t stay here!’

  He lurched towards the edge of the boat, pushing Vika aside as he went. The sudden shift in weight tipped them. Fen gave a scream of surprise as the boat flipped underneath her and she was plunged into freezing water, soaked to the bone, shocked by the cold of it. Even with Vika’s potion warming her, it took her breath away. She flailed, searching desperately for the surface, but the lantern had gone out and in the darkness she couldn’t tell which way was up.

  Lost in the abyss, clutching to the last moments of life, one thought broke through her panic.

  Da, you were right. I should have listened. You were right.

  Harod’s attempt to leave the hall hadn’t escaped Orica’s attention. She knew his posture so well, she could identify him at any distance. She felt the thrill of contact as she saw him, the illicit shock of two saboteurs crossing paths. Until that moment, she hadn’t known he was in the room.

  She watched as he argued with the servant, her heart sinking, hands moving mechanically through the chords of the jig. She saw him turn back to sit down next to Mara. Now she guessed what Mara had already realised: none of them could leave until the music stopped.

  The jig wound down to its close and the audience clapped again. That’s it, let us go! Orica thought. It’s time for the interval. But the prince was still seated and showed no sign of getting up. A servant whispered in his ear, but was waved away impatiently. Prince Ottico still expected more.

  Edgen turned to his troupe, looking a little panicked now. ‘Quick!’ he said. ‘“The Maven’s Respite”!’

  ‘I don’t know it,’ Orica said, before anyone could strike up the song. It was a lie, but it was all she could think to do.

  ‘You don’t know it?’ Edgen said, aghast. ‘Everyone knows it! “Lord Lusty and the Swan”, then.’

  ‘I don’t know that one, either,’ said Orica. She was trying to stall them, but she couldn’t do it for long. Sooner or later, Edgen would think of a piece that could be played without a lute.

  ‘The prince wants another song!’ Edgen said, his voice quiet and strangled, his eyes boring daggers into Orica’s skull. ‘What do you know?’

  And then it hit her, a thought so wild and right that she could do nothing but act on it. It was as if all the convolutions of her life had played out in order to place her here, at exactly
this moment.

  ‘I have a song for the prince,’ she said, and walked to the front of the stage.

  Edgen goggled at her, aghast, but the whole audience had seen her intention and he couldn’t send her back without embarrassment. All he could do was move aside, with a sickly grin, and pretend this was planned.

  ‘You’d better know what you’re doing,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  Then Orica was alone at the front of the stage, with only her lute between her and Prince Ottico and a hundred dignitaries behind him. Some of them – Ossians and Krodans, mostly – murmured at the gall of a Sard presenting herself so brazenly to the prince. But she only thought of one man as she played the introductory arpeggio, and her heart swelled as the music found her. Her voice carried across the hall, husky and haunting, taking all her worry and fear with it.

  The king stood at his window in his castle on the shore.

  His family were sleeping, his foes were no more.

  As he looked o’er the sea he heard knuckles on the door.

  ’Twas his seer, white as a ghost.

  ‘Sire, please beware, for a storm does draw near

  That will tear down your walls and take all you hold dear.’

  But the king laughed and knew he had nothing to fear

  And he turned his old eyes to the coast.

  The murmuring had died away; her voice always had the power to surprise a crowd to silence. Even the prince looked up at her with something like awe.

  He said, ‘I see no clouds, and the waves are not high.

  Your omens mislead you, your bones fall awry.’

  But the seer said, ‘Sire, not all storms come from the sky.

  There are depths to which you cannot see.

  ‘The tide is returning, and coming right soon.

  It brings with it those you have sent to their doom.

  There’s a wolf in the waves who yet howls from its tomb

  And the fallen keep long memory.’

  She saw suspicion dawning on him now, the sense that something was wrong. This tune wasn’t harmless, like the others. His face fell slowly and hardened, and Orica felt nothing but triumph at the sight.

  Then the king said, ‘You lie! For this land is my land!

  Passed on to me by fate’s bloodied right hand.’

  ‘But sire,’ said the seer, ‘though you think you command,

  Your rule is but fleeting here.

  ‘There are elder things yet than the god you obey

  And none may lay claim to this soil, try you may.

  For this land will be here after you pass away

  And its children will still persevere.’

  Prince Ottico’s face was a picture of sullen anger. He knew he was being defied, perhaps laughed at, but he didn’t understand how or why, and that made it worse. Many in the audience looked appalled while others listened happily, their command of Ossian too weak to read between the lines.

  Orica raised her eyes and found Harod in the audience. Even at this distance, she saw his eyes sparkling with tears, his face slack with admiration and fear for her.

  This is for you, my love, she thought.

  Said the king, ‘For this heresy, I’ll see you burn.

  I say destiny’s charge is not easy to turn.’

  But the seer shook his head. ‘Sire, you have much to learn,

  For the urds said the same in their day.’

  Now the king stands at his window and watches the sea

  And he knows that his castle’s no sanctuary

  As he waits for the truth of the seer’s prophecy

  And the storm that will sweep him away.

  As the final chord rang out into silence, she felt herself blissfully empty. After so long, her song was complete, and it was perfect. Let them do as they would with her now. Her music had been heard.

  Scattered applause faltered and died in the audience as the prince glared up at her. Edgen squirmed in an agony of exquisite humiliation, desperate to salvage the moment, not knowing how. Orica stood alone, the focus of it all, and held her head high.

  ‘I have heard enough Ossian music,’ said the prince at last, and stalked out of the hall. His attendants hurried after him.

  ‘Honoured guests!’ cried a servant. ‘Please make your way to your assigned rooms for dinner, which will be served shortly!’

  The tension broke and the audience all began to talk at once, rustling and gossiping and scraping chairs as they got to their feet and began flowing towards the exits. Orica walked past her stunned fellows to the back of the stage, her heart hammering, and returned her lute to its case. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder, afraid that some agent of the Iron Hand was already making their way to the stage to arrest her. If she didn’t look, she might stay beneath their notice for long enough to leave the hall.

  A hand fell on her shoulder before she could pick up the case.

  ‘What was that?’ Edgen hissed. ‘What in Joha’s name did you do, you little Sard bitch?’

  The hate in that word was like ice down Orica’s back. Edgen had never shown any signs of prejudice against her race, but how quickly the veil fell now she’d displeased him.

  She pushed his hand off her shoulder and turned, such fury in her gaze that he took a step back, surprised by the force of it. Elbowing her way past him, she headed for the small door behind the stage.

  Edgen followed her. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded in an angry whisper.

  ‘Next performance is third bell o’ dark, yes?’ Orica said over her shoulder. ‘I am taking a break.’

  She left him fuming. Belatedly she realised that she’d forgotten her lute in her agitation, but she dared not turn back for it now. She couldn’t risk being detained; there was too much at stake.

  A Krodan guard at the door watched her approach, clearly wondering if he should stop her. Everyone in the hall had seen her performance; everyone had witnessed the prince’s bristling displeasure. But he probably didn’t know enough Ossian to under­stand her song and he had no orders to detain her. When it came to it, he stood out of her way.

  She sighed with relief as the door closed behind her. She was in a narrow service corridor used mainly by servants and there was nobody in sight, for the staff were all busy herding guests to their various feasts. She’d have to hurry; first bell o’ dark couldn’t be far off now, and she had some way to go to reach the others.

  She set off quickly, keen to put some distance between her and the hall before any watchmen should hear of what she’d done and come looking. She had her excuses ready in case anyone questioned her, and the best route to the sewers was fixed in her mind, along with several alternatives besides. Her memory had been sharpened by years of training; it had to be good to remember her arsenal of music.

  My lute, she thought. It had been her companion for many years and she was sad to leave it behind. But Sards didn’t place much value on objects, for they travelled light and possessions could easily be stolen and lost. Feelings were all that counted. An instrument could be replaced. Her companions’ lives couldn’t.

  She began to tremble as she walked. The recklessness of what she’d done was beginning to sink in. She hadn’t felt the fear onstage, but it came now, and with it the cold terror of discovery. She found no thrill in trespassing. Her bravery was confined to her art.

  Prinn, Ragged Mummer, lend me your gift of disguise. Let me go unseen.

  But no sooner had she sent her prayer than she heard hurrying footsteps behind her. She turned a corner, hoping to evade whoever it was, but the footsteps kept coming at a pace just short of a run. She’d have to run too if she wanted to avoid them, and that would damn her.

  At least Harod could save the others now. At least there was that.

  ‘You!’

  She stopped. It was Edgen. He stood at the corner, breathing hard, his hair falling in disarray around his face. ‘I’m not finished with you,’ he told her.

  ‘I’ve nothing to s
ay to you, Edgen,’ she replied, though the look on his face made her afraid. He wasn’t an intimidating man, being of no great size, but alone with his anger in an empty corridor, Orica found him intimidating enough.

  ‘Well, I’ve something to say to you,’ he told her, advancing. ‘And your paymaster Errel!’

  Her brow creased as she backed away. ‘I don’t know who that is.’

  ‘Lying slut!’ he spat. ‘Who else would profit from my humiliation but my rival? Did he make my lutist ill, I wonder?’

  She had no idea who he was talking about, but she’d stopped listening anyway, his words becoming a jumble in the rolling wave of fear that swept her up. He seized her wrist and she wanted to slap him, but didn’t dare in case it made things worse.

  ‘Do you know what you’ve done to me with that little ditty of yours? To my reputation?’ His face was close to hers now. She could smell his breath, scented with lavender and fury. ‘It’s lucky the prince’s Ossian isn’t up to much. If he’d been able to decipher all your little wordplays, we’d both be hanged already!’

  ‘Let me go!’ was all she could think of to say. It came out weak, and sounded pathetic. A few moments ago, she’d dominated an entire room, but he’d robbed her of that in an instant.

  ‘Let you go?’ he cried. ‘No, you’re coming with me! You can explain yourself to the Master of Revels. I’ll be gods-damned if I’ll be ruined over one gold-digging green-eye ghetto whore!’

  She tried to pull away but he dragged her roughly after him.

  ‘Unhand that lady,’ said a stern voice.

  Harod. She could have wept with joy.

  ‘I told you to unhand her,’ Harod said when Edgen hesitated. He began walking towards them. ‘Otherwise, you’ll deal with me.’

  Edgen was transformed, becoming peevish and whiny in the presence of a bigger man. ‘You don’t understand! She’s an impostor sent to ruin me!’

  ‘I understand that you still have not released her, and I will not ask a third time.’

  Edgen dropped her arm as if it were a burning log. Harod loomed over him, chillingly impassive, a wall of threat.