by Ben Galley
Irien nodded. ‘That I did. Except for being locked in a vault within the tower at night.’
Without another word, Farden withdrew his hand and quickly made for the exit. He swept a cloak around him against the sporadic drips of rain. The beating of his heart now swirled in his head. He almost fell against a guard as he tottered away.
‘Where are you heading, Farden?’ Mithrid shook her head and reached for the wine. ‘Off to make things worse?’ she asked.
His shout was already half-lost in the crowds. ‘Maybe!’
Irien shook her head as she watched Farden leave. ‘I don’t know how you’re not grey in the head being around that mage.’
Durnus beat Mithrid to an answer, staring at her while he spoke. Whatever he and Farden had done the night before, Durnus was full of spit and energy, walking taller oncer more. The mage was quite the opposite.
‘She has not known him long enough, milady,’ he explained. ‘Farden might work in chaotic and brutal fashion, his emotions might rule him, but his heart is pure. It is because of that emotion his magick runs so deep. Never have I seen a man care for his country or people, or justice as much as he does. Method to a madness, so to speak,’ Durnus told them as he also reached for a cloak.
‘And where are you going?’ asked Mithrid. ‘Cathak threatened all our lives to get to Farden.’
‘I need to see a man about a minotaur,’ said the vampyre, already beyond the balcony. ‘And I would like to see them try me.’
‘Curious creatures aren’t they?’ Irien smirked as she turned her attention back to the Viscera. An intermission was in session. Servants ran around the arena throwing fruits into the lower crowds.
‘Which? Vampyres or mages?’
Irien grinned, reaching for the wine flagon in Mithrid’s hands. ‘Men.’
Farden raised his face to the sky once more, eyes closed, and let fat raindrops pelt his cheeks. He opened his mouth and tasted them on his tongue. Bitter. Dusty. Farden spat the rainwater over the rooftop’s edge.
He looked out between the sharp blades of the treetops, where houses clung to increasingly skinny trunks. Tangled cobwebs of ropes and walkways kept them all sturdy, but Farden could still feel a faint sway of the giant trees beneath him. Above, the highest of the mansions and watchtowers roosted.
It seemed the moon was slowly rolling up the slopes of the black mountain. Rainclouds hid Eaglehold’s peak. The top section of the moon was slowly disappearing.
Farden watched lightning crackle over the distant plains before spearing the earth with a blinding fork. Thunder came rolling several moments after, lazy and late, but no less formidable. Farden had often wondered whether storm giants only existed at sea, and whether some hid within mountain passes.
The mage closed his eyes and let out a breath. Farden had already tried ten times to reach the dragon since that afternoon, perched so long on Irien’s rooftops his legs had gone utterly numb. It was worth the effort. Without Fleetstar, he had no plans left that didn’t involve at least one of his friends dying.
He knew the dragon could be miles, leagues away by now.
Emptying his mind was hard with worry. A clear and single thought, perfectly formed. He focused on the dragon in his mind’s eye, weaving across a black sky swollen with rain. A name crystallised. Farden pushed it into the dark with all his concentration, head trembling with effort.
Fleetstar.
The celebratory racket of Vensk far beneath him was a riot that was hard to ignore. He strained to fade it from his mind.
Fleetstar.
Farden shook his head. Eyes snapping open. He peered at the moon, using its silver shine to turn the rest of his vision dark.
Her voice floated through his thoughts. What?
Farden punched the air.
It’s good to hear your voice, Fleetstar.
The voice was a slithering whisper, like old snake skin being crumpled.
So you’re not dead yet? Fleetstar asked.
Don’t sound so surprised.
Then, I take it you need my help again?
That we do.
The dragon did not sound impressed. Is this why the vampyre dragged me all the way here?
He dragged us all here.
Silence. Farden concentrated so hard he gave himself a headache. It’ll be dangerous, he said.
How dangerous?
The voice was louder now. Between the streaks of rain and clouds that seemed in a hurry to be somewhere, Farden saw a dragon’s shape pass across the face of the moon.
The kind of dangerous that Towerdawn would roast me alive for involving you in.
Towerdawn isn’t here, is he? When?
Tomorrow. As soon as my armour is fixed.
Leaving so soon?
We’re not welcome here any more and I won’t risk our necks another day. I’ll show you.
As he had been taught, Farden let his mind unfold with memories of the day in the Viscera. Of Aspala and Warbringer locked behind bars. Farden barraged her with his thoughts. An unintentional amount, perhaps. Worry and fear seeped along.
And they call me mad, Fleetstar whispered.
Footsteps clattered on the flat rooftop behind him. ‘There you are,’ said the Lady of Whispers. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’
Farden nodded beneath his hood and let the patter of rain answer.
‘What are you doing up here?
‘Speaking to a friend.’
Irien came to sit beside him and peer over the edge of roof to the Vensk’s glow. ‘Your dragon?’
‘Good guess.’ In all honesty, Farden had been expecting one of Evernia’s highly enjoyable visits, where she came to herald some new complaint of the gods. In all the history of Farden’s fight against the dark history of Emaneska, the gods had only shown their faces when their own existence was threatened. Otherwise, they had been perfectly happy to meddle in his affairs from afar. Irien was welcome compared to Evernia.
‘There’s mind magick like that in the south,’ said the Lady of Whispers. ‘It’s a skill I’d pay handsomely for. Pays to be astute in my business, and that is why the Cathak bother me. They worked alone and under my nose. Even my children were stumped.’
‘I’m not holding it against you, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ said Farden as he looked at her at last. She wore no hood, bearing the rain without care.
Irien squinted one eye. ‘I wasn’t. Though if I had known you would be this much trouble, I would have left you pondering the statue of Sigrimur and walked away. You’re lucky I pine to see a dragon.’
Farden was about to apologise when she laughed clear and loudly.
‘Admittedly, I’ve probably caused you further trouble. It isn’t wise to be seen with me, being banished from the house of Golikar and all.’
‘What is this queen’s problem with you?’
Irien let the rain patter against her wooden arm. Clearly she wasn’t bothered about rusting whatever clockwork sat inside its shell. ‘Same as what cost me an arm. Queen Peskora and I grew up in the same circles and courts, you see, before her father became king. If there’s anything that Golikar has too much of, it’s not trees, but families. Matchmaking is a sport almost as bloody as the Scarlet Tourney. The lords and ladies this damned land teems with come sniffing around any noble that is coming of marrying age. Hoping to make a fine dowry at least, a shot at the throne in a generation or two at most.
‘As soon as Peskora’s father succeeded the king, anybody remotely related to her became the potential spouses of choice. The problem was that Peskora was maddeningly jealous. Queens and kings can marry as many as they choose to in Golikar. Now a princess, she claimed the same right, snapping up noble after noble. The families were more than happy to oblige given their new status and her father too old to care. But Peskora was clever, as well as vindictive and cruel. She never married them and simply built herself a harem. When she became queen, she decided she wanted the man my own mother and father had chosen for me. I des
pised the idea entirely. He did not. He was besotted with me. Naturally.’ Irien smirked before her eyes turned narrow.
‘The man was a fool. He ignored every one of my refusals until he rejected the queen herself, as if that made his love for me purer. He did it painfully publicly, too. Much like his execution. To Peskora’s eyes, I was at fault, and after hanging him from Vensk’s highest branch, she took my left arm. It was meant to be both, so that none could take my hand in marriage, but my father bankrupted himself saving me from my whole punishment. We were banished instead. I was twenty summers old at the time and a decade has passed since. Though I’ve made plenty of myself my hatred for Peskora still burns. And she for me. That’s why I agreed to help you, and that’s why she punished your friends.’
Irien’s tone was disarming once again by the end of her story. Before Farden could speak, she nudged him with her good arm. ‘I see you’re no stranger to losing parts of yourself.’ She nodded to his missing finger. Farden had been holding his hand and tracing the old wound without realising. It ached in the rain, and more so recently.
‘A gift from an old friend,’ he admitted with a sigh. ‘Torn off during a fight for a kingdom long gone. Lost to empire.’
‘And speaking of kingdoms and empires, what really brings you so far east, Forever King?’
Farden tensed. Instinctively, his eyes strayed to the crossbow on her arm, currently balanced against her knee.
‘Oh yes, I’ve heard your story, even as far afield as Dathazh. The Forever King. The traitor mage who would defy an empire. The people’s hero. I thought it was the story of some bard’s song when I first heard it.’
‘How long have you known?’ Farden muttered.
‘Since an hour after we first met. I didn’t want to say as much before. Your reaction when I spoke of a warlord mage and the emperor was obvious. Better hidden than Mithrid’s, but I would still stick to fighting, if I were you. You would not do well in my line of work. And you can relax, darling. I have no stake in your wars. After all, the hawks flying in from the west say that the war is already over. Rumour of a slaughter and that the north is aflame. I am merely curious to know how the famed mage and scourge of the Arka Empire comes to be here, looking for a stone head.’
‘Magick. Durnus’ magick, as it happens. We had a relic with us, what we call a Weight. An old tool of the Arkmages before Emperor Malvus. It’s broken, now. Burned out and useless.’ Farden knew how it felt.
‘Why did you come here?’
‘Thought you didn’t care about the why?’
‘I don’t consider this to be business any more, Farden. Our fates are entwined now. And call me curious, seeing as the whispers I hear say that the empire lost dearly and the emperor is missing. Maybe dead. Seeing as the western sky burns through the night and ash falls on the Rivenplains, I would like to know ahead of time if that’s what you’re planning here.’
‘The emperor besieged us. The rest of Scalussen was evacuated and we escaped at the last minute during the battle. We’re here because Durnus found a map. The Head of Sigrimur and his last breath are part of the map. See, we didn’t completely lie.’
Irien looked serious now. ‘A map to what?’
‘To something Emaneska desperately needs. Maybe even Easterealm too. That’s all I will say.’
Irien leaned closer, gaze flitting across each of Farden’s eyes as she examined him. ‘Still don’t trust me?’ she asked.
Farden faced the skies, tasting the bitter rain once more. He chuckled as he shook his head. ‘No. Not yet.’
‘Will you tell me at least what you’re planning for tomorrow?’
‘Something loud and dramatic, as Durnus would put it.’
When Farden turned back, he found Irien had not moved. Standing even closer now. Still, her eyes roved his face. ‘How old are you, to be called the Forever King? You don’t look ten years older than me and I have thirty summers behind these eyes.’
‘Old enough. Getting older all the time, it seems,’ Farden sighed.
‘Aren’t we all?’
He pointed up to the clouds churning above, distracting her. ‘You can consider this a down payment.’
Risking the lantern-glow of the watchtowers, Fleetstar soared dangerously close above the pines. Her wings were half-lost in cloud and darkness. Thunder masked their beat and her impudent roar.
Farden was gone by the time Irien turned back around, wide-eyed.
CHAPTER 18
PATH PAINTED RED
The dark elves, when they walked the lands, knew all too well the vast depths of magick. That is why they built great wells of magick to capture and extort magick’s unimaginable power. Inexhaustible, in essence. All it takes is a vessel or conduit, one that is either large enough, or strong enough.
FROM ‘MAGICKAL MASTERY’ BY WRITTEN SCHOOL TUTOR CADMIS THE ELDER
The rain hammered the plains, bending the grass to its merciless whims. It drowned everything in sight, from rock to grimacing shepherd. Flocks gathered around Lilerosk’s walls under the tarpaulins the wind hadn’t ripped away. Bonfires were smothered by the persistent sweeping downpour. Those trapped beyond taverns and houses and guard posts huddled together to endure the storm. They were none the wiser to the pair of red-raw eyes that watched their town from an overlooking hill. Eyes that held malice and murder behind them.
Malvus sniffed again, drawing in that familiar scent that he had followed from the cursed wood to this wretched scratch of town. It did not drift with the wind, did not wash away with the deluge. Even the stink of sheep and unwashed shepherds could not cover it. Magick. Its aroma was sharp, metallic. Its trail glittered like a meandering river in each flash of lightning.
Malvus stretched out his hands and examined once more the raw cracks on his skin between the runes of black and scabbed red. Blood still ran from wounds that refused to heal. Even the daemonblood failed to close those. Even now, a fresh vial ran through him, intwining with the magick in the most intoxicating way. He had called it pain before he had become… this. But now he had been drowned in pain, all he felt was power, coursing through every vein and burning to escape his drenched skin.
With a stretch of Malvus’ fingers, fire ignited. Arcs of white flame rose and fell across his palms. Runes across his arm sizzled as they flared brightly. Raindrops burst into steam. The dark night was turned to day as he pushed the power to limits he had not yet explored. The wet grass beneath him was reduced to ash within moments.
Malvus looked back to the town. His head pounded, mirroring his racing heart. The rush of magick was invigorating.
The mage was here, spoke the voices again, so faint to be almost unmistakable from the howl of wind and the hammer of rain on his ragged hood.
It stinks of his magick.
Consume it with fire.
Tear them apart for their insolence.
The voices, like the burning within his limbs, had become a constant companion since leaving the farmhouse. Daemon or magick-borne, Malvus could not tell. He could not care. They were him and he they. They spoke with his voice, whispered the thoughts hence craved to speak to plainly. Finer allies than the god standing a dozen paces beside him. The god who flitted into the darkness half the days, only hunting alongside Malvus when it suited him.
‘What’s in your mind, Malvus?’ Loki called over the howl of the rain.
He doesn’t trust you, came another whisper. You must kill him before he kills you.
‘Murder,’ snarled Malvus as he met the gods curious eye. ‘That and the smell of magick. Farden was here. Do you taste it too, god? Is this what the world feels like to creatures like you?
‘I can feel it, but I can also feel that Farden and the girl are far beyond this runt of a town.’
‘Any people that have given Farden shelter oppose me.’
He waited for Loki to contradict him. Lord Saker had been the only one with a stomach for what needed to be done. But the god surprised him with a nonchalant shrug. The rain ran dow
n his face in rivulets as he stared, unblinking. ‘You answer to none now, Emperor. These mortals matter not.’
Malvus chuckled deeply. ‘I am no emperor any more, god. I am much more. I am nothing like these lands or any have ever seen. They will know my wrath and I’ll pay no price for it to anyone. I am crippled by my frail and sickened body no more. I’m finally all that I dreamed. More powerful than armies and hordes. More powerful than Written and Scarred. More powerful than Prince Gremorin. Even you, Loki.’
Again, Malvus flexed his magick. No spell words tumbled from his mouth. No memorised mumbles of old words, just the raw innate nature of magick Malvus had always longed to understand. He had lost count of the times he’d cursed his parents for their weak bloodline. How many times magick awoke in this cousin or that distant friend. And now he was the very pinnacle of magick.
‘The night is waning, Malvus. Time to put your magick where your mouth is.’
Malvus turned to the god, fire spitting from his hands. White runes shone across his chest, even his face. To Malvus disgust, the god did not flinch. Every drop of blood and magick in him ached to press on, to see what the god was made of, but Malvus managed to hold himself. The magick obeyed him sluggishly. Fire slunk back into his skin, making his tattoos shine. Malvus was left staring at the god.
Loki hoisted up a hood over his head. ‘Remember who put you on this path, Malvus. I’m not your enemy,’ he warned.
Malvus growled. He would be the judge of that. ‘What is its name, the town?’
‘Lilerosk, if I remember rightly. Why?’
‘As that worm Toskig used to say, know your enemy.’
With that, Malvus turned to the wretched collection of ragged mages, soldiers, and other dregs they had gathered on the road. A stunted wood troll, madder than Hel. More fenrir. Even a wild vampyre, content to hover on the edge of their group.
With a crook of his hand, Malvus gestured onwards into the night.
‘You need your eyes tested, damn it! Drag me up out of bed for bloody sprites of your imagination!’ Flocklord Boorin berated the drenched guard. He had been enjoying the finest dream of sheepskin clouds littered with shepherd’s daughters when he had been rudely awoken. Fire on the hills, they’d said, but even after being dragged out into the wolfish gales, after soaking his best tunic and jacket right through, he’d seen nothing but an angry night.
