Flame's Shadow

by Anna Eluvae

  Nemm nodded. "You could find a similar story in any city in the world," she said, more to the crowd than to him. "That's how we sin, a little at first in a way that seems harmless, a bit of bread taken because we're hungry, and by the time we realize the depths that we've sunk to, it can seem too late to crawl out. We make our sin a way of life."

  "Yes," said Dravus. The story was flowing easily now. "I didn't feel like there was any way to escape it. I picked up the spear and attacked Zerstor because it felt like my final chance." He watched Nemm closely, trying to divine the meaning of every small movement of her face and the subtle shifts in her posture. Outwardly she was projecting power, speaking to him like she was the sole person in charge of his fate, which was effectively the case with Lexari so badly injured. This was just as much an act for her as it was for him, a presentation that they were giving to the crowd, but whatever Nemm was feeling beneath that surface was hidden to him.

  "I can see truth in a man's eyes," said Nemm. "But I can't see his future. You saved Lexari and thereby took a first step towards redemption. For that, I forgive your crimes. If you stray from that path, I will not hesitate to slit your throat, whatever else passes between us."

  "I won't, my lady," said Dravus. He wasn't sure of the proper form of address. "I regret not explaining matters to you earlier, and I can only hope that I prove myself to you in the days to come."

  "Lexari is injured, and in need of our assistance," said Nemm. "Consider that assistance your first task as his apprentice." She turned and began walking, and he followed just behind her. Some of the people who had been watching left, but at least a dozen of them fell into step, hanging around like a cloud of bad air. Dravus's eyes were firmly on Nemm.

  As the story went, Nemm had been sold into marriage by her father for a sum of forty drams. Her purchaser was the king of Geswein, who had seen her while strolling through a market and taken an instant liking to her.

  He was forty-eight, and she was nine.

  The king doted on her, more like she was his daughter than his wife. The indulgences were stories of their own, grand feasts of a hundred courses, cunningly crafted toys plated in gold, and festivals that lasted for weeks. Nemm had already become one of the illustrati on the basis of her royalty and the scandalous circumstances of her marriage, but the stories of her extravagant life spread quickly, and she was thereby granted extraordinary power for one so young. She used her domain to shape glass trinkets for herself and those who had found her favor. When she was unhappy, the glass would shatter beneath her fingers and form sharp edges that never seemed to cut at her flesh. For seven years she played in her husband's gardens, spending his money on earthly delights and generally being a terror to anyone that didn't amuse her. When her husband died, she was unceremoniously booted from Geswein by a group of merchants who had pretensions towards democracy and no respect for her nominal title of Queen.

  She ended up in Abalon, a small kingdom with a hundred nobles. She had grown into a woman, and her appetites had changed. Where once it was toys and treats, now it was men. It was said that she slept with all hundred of Abalon's nobles, sometimes two or three at a time, and when that had been accomplished, she moved on to the lower classes. The stories of her childhood were still circulating the world, and now they were joined by stories of adult promiscuity.

  She stepped onto the battlefield by accident. She had been sharing a bed with one of the generals of Abalon during a brief border war, and had taken the whole thing for a lark until the camp was overrun. Her suitcase had been filled overflowing with her trinkets of glass, and from this great mass she fashioned weapons for herself. She was one of the major illustrati, her comings and goings spoken of in taverns across the world, and when the soldiers came to her tent, she moved through them like a wind made of blades. Thereafter she came out to meet the army and turned the tides of battle. It was sometimes said that she was nude for that battle, her bare skin hidden only by crystal-clear glass, but Dravus thought that was far-fetched, even for a story of the illustrati.

  Nemm became something of a mercenary after that, as bloodshed joined her growing list of appetites. Money was of little concern to her, so she instead sought out wars that were interesting in some way. She had no training in warfare, but summers in the Conto Mountains and winters hunting warwolves in the Sverna Valley worked their own sort of magic on the woman clad in glass. Men were eager to teach her, if only to put themselves in her company. She sliced a path through dozens of wars, almost always at the frontlines, her swiftness and strength compounding the advantages that her razor-sharp blades gave her.

  She was just starting to get bored with the killing when Lexari found her, and they had been sailing together ever since.

  That was how the stories went, anyway. As Dravus watched her walk, he tried to sort out what of it was likely true, and found that he had no real way of knowing. It was certain that it wasn't all true. They said that in her childhood Nemm had kept a puppy as her constant companion, and when the puppy grew too old for her liking she had fed it shards of glass just to see what would happen. Dravus didn't believe that one, but it was something his mother had repeated more than once. There was a persistent story told among his friends about how Nemm had once had sex with an elephant, but Forus had admitted to making it up. That didn't stop anyone from repeating it, with new details added every time. Before he'd met her, he was willing to entertain the possibility that the woman was almost entirely mythological. Now, he wasn't so sure. If it was an edifice, it was a masterfully constructed one.

  When he realized that they were heading toward the ship, he almost asked whether they could stop by his shared apartment first, but his reasons for returning there were more sentimental than practical, and he couldn't very well say that he was going to be a hero and then ask for permission to pick up a second pair of pants - not with all these people around listening in. He would have to speak to her privately later on.

  It was sunset when they reached the ship. Wenaru came out on the deck to meet them. His apron and hands were both bloody, but he greeted them with a smile.

  "I put him out," said Wenaru. "A simple constriction of the carotid, not terribly good for him but better than having him endlessly pushing himself. After I released it, he stayed down. He needs more blood, but there's no one with that domain in Genthric, not at the level of power needed for domain genesis."

  "He needs to be able to make an appearance tomorrow when we leave," said Nemm. "Whatever that takes."

  Gael's face fell. "He needs to stay in bed. It's a small miracle that he was able to stumble back here. It will take a month and a half at a minimum for all the bones to mend, and he's going to have to learn how to use a hand made of light, at least until we can make a trip to the Bone Warden."

  "I'm not asking," said Nemm. "And you know that Lexari would agree with me."

  Gael nodded, but he didn't look happy.

  "And stay by his side tonight," Nemm continued. "There's a good chance that we'll have visitors. Not the courteous kind."

  "What do you expect me to do about it?" asked Gael. His voice wavered.

  Nemm rolled her eyes. "Whatever your conscience demands. Keep him company, tend to what wounds still remain, be there to raise the alarm. I'm not asking you to rip anyone apart at the seams."

  Gael winced. "Alright. Another sleepless night. Before we leave tomorrow we'll need new sheets and bedding, he's bled through what was there. His armor is in a shambles as well."

  "I'll see to it," said Nemm. "Our new companion and I need to have a talk, if you don't mind."

  Gael went down into the ship with only a brief, pitying glance at Dravus. Nemm rested her hands on the pommels of daggers.

  "The pecking order on the ship is becoming clear to me," said Dravus. He tried to smile, but it faltered when Nemm's mouth remained in a thin line.

  "We got the public explanation out of the way," said Nemm. "That went well enough, I can give you credit for that." She looked to the dock
, where the sailors with swords were making sure that people were staying well back. "I shouldn't have sent you out there on your own, I see that now, and I can take some of the blame."

  Dravus kept silent. Nemm's eyes turn back toward him. Though the light was fading, Dravus found that his ability to see wasn't impaired at all. It wasn't exactly as though the deck of the ship was brightly lit, but he could see clearly all the same. His connection to his domain had deepened, and he ached to test his new limits.

  "Any man who inserts himself into a battle between the illustrati is a fool," said Nemm. "If you stab a man through the heart, if you do it perfectly, if his blood is flowing swiftly, it takes a matter of seconds for him to drop. Any other mortal wound, aside from piercing or cutting through the spine or the brain, will leave you with a man that can still fight you, even if he's not long for the world. I don't think you properly understand the damage that Zerstor could have done. Zerstor should have killed you before you could touch him. And even though you touched him, it shouldn't have killed him. And even though it killed him, he should have had enough time to drive his sword through you. I can't overstate how lucky you got. You were an absolute fool, one unhindered by his total lack of knowledge, and you were rewarded for it. What probably saved you was that Zerstor couldn't get over your sheer, idiotic audacity."

  "You're upset that I wasn't punished," said Dravus. His cheeks were flushed, and he hoped that the lanterns the sailors were lighting wouldn't let her see it. "You think that if someone does something brave but reckless, they should be smashed down for it, ground into paste just because you think that's the way of it. You would rather I had died, and that Lexari had died too, just so that the world could be 'fair'."

  "The next time I'm in the middle of a fight, the kind that unfortunately tend to happen with a large number of civilians around, one of those bystanders is going to think to himself, 'Well, Lightscour did it, why can't I?' I'll be bristling with glass, armed with unimaginably sharp blades, and I'll be going up against someone wreathed in flame, and this hypothetical idiot, inspired by you, is going to try to be a hero, and I'm going to have to watch him die for it."

  Dravus was silent. Nemm's hands were clenched around her daggers.

  "I've watched so many men die," said Nemm. "The ones that go willingly to their end are easy. They don't want to die, but they've accepted that it's a possibility, or even an eventuality. There are these other men though, the ones that think they're somehow invincible, who think that they're going to engage the enemy and walk away unscatched. Sometimes I was that enemy, and I had to prove their vulnerability to them. I hated it. Still hate it, though my line of work has made it more rare." She shook her head. "And I just came in and rescued you from a situation of your own making, and it's not so much that that bothers me, it's the fact that you haven't learned anything from it except for the fact that you can escape unscathed."

  "I do understand," said Dravus. "I should have at least been more honest with you. It would have made things go more smoothly. I wasn't thinking."

  "No," said Nemm. "That's the problem, you were thinking, but you were thinking that you could get away with it, and sail off across the sea with us before your recent past could catch up to you, without having to jeopardize your place on this ship. You underestimated how badly things would go for you, and you're lucky that I showed up when I did. I was only coming to speak with her, not expecting to find you there. If you had been dragged in there an hour later, we wouldn't have had a choice but to leave without you."

  There was a small, stubborn part of Dravus that was fairly confident that he could have handled it himself. He could have convinced Korata into letting him go, pretended at being defeated so that she wouldn't see him as a risk, and made it back to the ship. He could feel some newfound strength coursing through him, though less than he would have expected. It seemed like it would have been enough to make a difference. He resisted the urge to say as much to Nemm.

  "Lexari needs me," said Dravus. "I'm part of his story now. You can't have so much buildup between two titans and then have it end with a random civilian turning a defeat into a victory, Lexari explained that much to me. He's using me, and I'm getting a lot out of it, and that's all well and good. But that does mean that we're going to be traveling together, so … look, I'm sorry. I am. I'm not sorry that things worked out for me, but I'm here now, and I want to get along."

  "Fine," said Nemm. "I had one of the cabins cleared out, it's the second one on your right. Go get some sleep, and Lexari can deal with you in the morning." She turned and looked out towards the sea. There was indistinct chatter from the docks that drifted over to the ship. The ship was a fair distance from anyone; some of the sailors had been put to guard duty and closed off a portion of the docks. Dravus could still see them in the dark though, small clusters of men and women on shore leave, and a few people who were watching the ship, waiting for something exciting to happen, even if the nighttime view left something to be desired.

  "You said visitors?" asked Dravus.

  Nemm didn't turn around. "How much did you know about Zerstor? I know there are laws in the Sovento States against talking about people like him, but I know how effective those laws tend to be."

  "He was a villain," said Dravus. The sound of a man's skull being crushed had left its impression. "He killed people so that he could be famous, so that he could get power, so that he could kill more people, on and on."

  "That unfortunately describes a hundred men and a fair number of women," said Nemm. "But Zerstor was special. He was smart. He picked his fights carefully. He made a name for himself by meddling, isolating those topics that people couldn't stop themselves from talking about and inserting himself into that discussion with all the subtlety of a cannon. He was an abolitionist for a few years. He would descend on plantations with sword in hand, or stowaway on slave ships and unleash hell when they were out to sea. He freed thousands, maybe tens of thousands."

  "And they would talk about him," said Dravus. The purpose was clear enough. He had heard of illustrati freeing slaves, but hadn't realized that Zerstor was one of them. The Sovento States held no slaves, and didn't allow slaver ships in port. "They would tell stories about the man in rusted armor that saved them."

  Nemm nodded. "And when the slaves were recaptured, they would spread those stories to other slaves. The slaves wouldn't have the same incentives not to speak his name. The laws would stop them even less than they stop everyone else. Not that the taboos do much good in the first place," said Nemm. "Some of the slave masters took to cutting out the tongues of their property, in the hopes of curbing Zerstor's power, but a single person is inconsequential when it comes to our fame, no matter how much of a fanatic they are. Zerstor didn't really care about the slaves, of course. It was just a path to power. Once the legend had been cemented, he moved on to other schemes, other places that he could barge into the global conversation. He'd pick fights with powerful opponents, not for any real reason except that it would make waves. For a better part of a decade he was a thorn in the Iron King's side." Dravus had heard those stories. Zerstor had rusted hundreds of the Iron King's cannons, and they had fought each other a few times as well. "And then he was killed by a street rat."

  "You said visitors," Dravus reminded her.

  "Yes," said Nemm. "That was one of the ways that Zerstor was clever. He would team up with other rogues, so that both their legends would grow. These were always temporary alliances, never more than a month or two, but it was the sort of thing that people couldn't help but talk about. Zerstor and Sanguin, Zerstor and Boletus, Zerstor and the Animal Twins, on and on. He was a dangerous friend for anyone to have, only an ally for as long as you were useful to him, but there was something about him that many found compelling." Nemm sighed. "So there's a good chance that he came to Genthric with someone, and with Lexari being injured as he is, it would be an opportune time to strike. Those are the sort of visitors I'm talking about."

  "Ah," said Dravu
s. He watched her carefully.

  "They might also want to kill you," said Nemm.

  He almost asked why, but it was obvious enough. He was Lexari's would-be protege. Of course that would make him a target. "I can take care of myself."

  "Alright," said Nemm. "Let's spar then." She turned to look at him, and slowly shifted her position so her feet were shoulder-width apart and her hands were held loosely in front of her.

  "I didn't mean like that," said Dravus. He made no attempt to match her fighting stance.

  "Come on," said Nemm. "There aren't too many ways that I can get out my frustrations, especially if no one takes the bait and goes after Lexari."

  "You'd kill me," said Dravus. "And you're fully armored."

  Nemm looked down at her glass breastplate. "You haven't seen me fully armored," she replied. "When I'm serious about battle, I don't have an inch of skin exposed. The bodily domains are too dangerous." She pulled her armor apart at the middle, as though there was a hidden seam there, and laid the two half shells of it beside one of the ship's masts. "It should probably go without saying that one doesn't normally kill one's sparring partners. I pledge not to hurt you too much more than what Wenaru can fix. You think you can handle yourself? You think if Leiptora comes slithering up on the ship you'll be able to do a damned thing about it? Show me."