Flame's Shadow

by Anna Eluvae

  The rooftops of Parance were uneven, dropped precipitously from building to building before rising again. Dravus dropped two stories down to a rooftop plaza, then burst through a pair of large doors, bringing the deep shadows with him. A group of musicians with string instruments held with long fingers were groping around in the darkness, but the breeze Dravus could feel on his neck was enough for him to ignore them and push his way towards the nearest door, which he kicked open with a splinter of wood. He barreled his way down the hallway he found himself in, looking for somewhere that he could lose his pursuer. When he saw a flight of stairs, he took them, going up instead of down, then raced to another open window so that he could jump down to the street.

  There were gasps and cries of terror as he brought the darkness with him. The landing was hard on his joints, but while the drop had been from high up, it wasn't nearly bad enough to injure him. Dravus raced past the blinded people, trying his best not to look back. He ducked into the first alleyway he could see, then dropped not just the shadows, but his armor as well. The purple clothing he wore was more conspicuous than he would like, and his complexion was darker than the people he saw in the streets, but if Gallieae was still following, Dravus hoped that a casual air would be enough to deflect immediate attention. Dravus would have to steal more simple clothing in order to blend in. It was unfortunate that the people of Parance didn't seem to hang their clothing out to dry as was done in Genthric.

  Dravus walked down the alley with a casual stroll, looking for somewhere that he could duck into without making a scene. He heard shouts from the street behind him, which he assumed were caused by Gallieae landing in pursuit, but it would take some time for him to question the bystanders, and by then Dravus hoped to have melted into the city as best he could. When Dravus came to the end of the alley, he found himself on another of Parance's city streets, with a cafe close by. He smiled with an ease he didn't feel and sat down at a table near the back, just in time to see soldiers marching down the street at nearly a run. Gallieae didn't come barreling down the alley as Dravus had feared; by the time Dravus had gotten his cup of coffee, it was starting to sink in that he had accomplished the first part of his escape. That left him a wanted man in the middle of Parance, separated from his party and with only a trifling amount of money.

  * * *

  They hadn't agreed on a place to meet. The grenade had interrupted that conversation. Afterward, he should have talked it over with Nemm, but he hadn't imagined that they too would be split up. The last thing that Lexari had talked about was taking on the Iron King himself, which would mean going a day's ride from Parance to Castle Launtine, but that had seemed like foolishness itself even before the four of them had been scattered to the winds.

  Dravus wasn't sure how to find the others, if they were even alive. Nemm had fallen some two hundred and fifty feet, if not more, without the benefit of even small, ineffectual wings. If she'd been able to land without injury, she would have found herself right next to the building they'd been trying to escape from, likely in an area swarming with the very men they'd just been in combat with. Lexari had broken through a window on the top floor of the Ministry of Legends with glowing wings displayed to the world; the shards of glass falling to the ground would have brought people forward like moths to the flame, even before the most famous man in the world was seen making a dramatic exit. By the time Nemm had made her own landing, the base of the Ministry would have been awash with the sorts of people who are drawn to catastrophes. Dravus's experience told him that soldiers, guards, and illustrati would be among them.

  Dravus finished his coffee slowly. Lexari and Wenaru wouldn't be in much better shape than Nemm. While Dravus could at least make an attempt to blend in, Lexari was far too recognizable. Dravus had a darker complexion, but Lexari's skin was the color of burnished bronze, too dark for him to easily fit in with population of Parance, especially not with his bald head and regal stature. Wenaru could pass as another redheaded man from the Highlands of the Iron Kingdom, which was more or less what he was, but Lexari would stick out like a sore thumb.

  If they all went into hiding like Dravus planned on doing, he had no idea how they would find each other. If the Iron Kingdom were not looking for them, the place to go would be Bordes, where their ship waited in port. Unfortunately, not only was Bordes a day's ride away, it was almost certain that there were spies and soldiers watching the ship, if they hadn't seized it entirely. That meant that Dravus would have to find the others somewhere in Parance without any real way of communicating with them. They had only been to a few places since coming to Parance, not including the Ministry of Legends, which was unsuitable as a meeting spot for obvious reasons. The problem was that the Iron Kingdom's spies would know everywhere that the four of them had been as well; Dravus recalled leaving Quill's former building with their weapons drawn and Lexari's armor lighting up the city street. They hadn't been the least bit inconspicuous.

  Dravus drained the rest of his coffee, leaving only dregs, and kept his eyes on the street. He had seen more than a few people moving towards the Ministry of Legends. The ones in uniform moved faster than those who were not. Dravus wondered how much time he would have before the manhunt began in earnest; if the average member of the Iron Kingdom's bureaucracy had no idea what sort of trap had been laid, it might take some time to untangle the events of the day and tie them back to the nominal culprits. There was no question that they had killed the Minister of Legends, or a great many people within the building whether illustrati or not. That made Dravus feel slightly sick. It didn't seem to matter that it was compelled by necessity.

  He came to no firm decision on where the best place to meet up with the others might be. After some time he decided on Hartwain's, though he wasn't quite foolish enough to go knocking on the door to the manor. Instead he would steal whatever he needed for a suitable disguise, then loiter a block or two away, not only to watch for the others, but to see whether Hartwain's house was under surveillance by anyone else. Dravus had only been in Parance for a day; he hoped that his face would be difficult for anyone to recognize.

  He left the cafe after a group of soldiers had gone by, stole trousers and a shirt from a house whose lock he quickly picked, and made his way across the unfamiliar city until he arrived at Hartwain's manor house. When he got there, his heart sank in his chest.

  * * *

  The door was slightly ajar and the windows were all shattered on the ground floor. Dravus saw no one on the street, so he crept closer, ready to bolt at the first sign of danger. Fleeing from Gallieae's pursuit had gone much better than he'd thought it would; the ability to fill a space with shadows combined with Dravus's power as an illustrati and natural fleet-footedness meant that he could likely outrun anyone following him, no matter who they were. He tried to keep his heart from hammering in his chest as he slipped inside the manor. If there had been any talking, he would have kept his distance, but whatever had happened to Hartwain, it seemed as though it was already over. The interior of the house showed the same disarray that was clear from the outside, with pictures hanging crooked on the walls and furniture knocked askew. There was blood as well, mostly in small dribbles that were smeared on the floor and spattered on the walls.

  Dravus pushed open the door to the sitting room where he'd taken tea with Hartwain slowly. The sliver of light revealed a number of cats, a few of which were looking right at him. Dravus felt an urge to run away and leave this place behind, but tried to ignore it. When he heard a low growl from behind him, he wished that he had listened to that inner voice. He turned slightly to confirm that the immense black cat, the one which almost certainly outweighed him, was standing directly behind him. Its footsteps had been entirely silent.

  "Won't you come in, Dravus?" asked a voice from within the sitting room.

  Dravus reluctantly pushed the door the rest of the way open, revealing Hartwain laid out on the chaise, unmoving, and Faye standing in the center of the room. There were dozens o
f cats of every variety around her, each of them looking at Dravus. In her hands, Faye held a blocky gray device with a fist-sized hole in the top. Dravus was immediately aware that it was a Harbinger artifact, by some uncanny trick of the mind which only the Harbingers knew. He looked at Faye, whose face showed no amusement or compassion. At the same time, she didn't seem particularly surprised or angry to see him.

  "You tried to kill me," said Dravus.

  "We tried to kill Lexari," said Faye. "Apparently something went wrong, if you are here." Her hair was mussed. She had a wound on her forehead near the hairline, three parallel marks that could only have been from the claws of the big cat which had sat down right behind Dravus. The wound hadn't been bandaged, but despite that it was completely bloodless. Faye had other wounds about her, along with places where her clothing had been ripped and torn, but there was no blood anywhere on her person.

  "You could apologize," said Dravus.

  "I am sorry," said Faye. "Our organization is composed of many different people with different views on how things should be done. It was agreed that Lexari is among the greatest threats we face, but opinions varied on what losses were acceptable. I argued in favor of taking you aside, but it was thought that this would raise suspicions." She shook her head. "I arrived too late for my opinion to mean much. Nevertheless, I am sorry that I did not campaign for you harder."

  "Do you really think that I'm still going to join you?" asked Dravus.

  "I don't know," said Faye. "I hope that this meeting is fortuitous in some way." The cats watched Dravus, all eyes turned in his direction. Faye's affect was flat, yet there was something of music in the way she spoke, a harmonic that underlined her words.

  "You killed Hartwain," said Dravus.

  "No," said Faye. "The artifact does not require death. We endeavor not to kill. Hartwain is only resting."

  "You stole her power," said Dravus.

  "Yes," replied Faye. She held forth the artifact. "You recall what I said when we last met? The illustrati are — to a one — concerned with their fame, thirsty for more of it and intent on propagating their own image as far and wide as possible. The most powerful men and women have to be concerned with how they are viewed by the people they rule."

  "So you change the concentration of power," said Dravus. "The illustrati will be you and your people now, not men like Kendrick and women like Hartwain."

  "You do not grasp what the artifact does," said Faye. "There is a link between a person and the idea of that person. We change that link, pulling the handle of power and the domain with it. Do you understand the distinction?"

  "No," said Dravus. "If you stole Kendrick's domain — and I have to think that's the most reasonable conclusion to draw from the fact that your wounds aren't bleeding — then it's clear you don't need the subject alive. You've stolen the power, but the only difference is that you'll be propagating someone else's legend instead of your own."

  "And if I exchanged a linkage with another?" asked Faye. "We would be inspired towards cooperation rather than pursuing selfish strategies. Or beyond that, if I had no idea which stories propelled my own fame."

  Dravus frowned. "It wouldn't matter. You wouldn't be able to spread someone else's stories in order to accumulate your power, but … you could still use your status as illustrati to spread stories about yourself. One domain would fade with time while the other would rise, until eventually you were nothing but an ordinary illustrati again."

  "Unless my link belonged to another," said Faye. "Someone I did not know. You can imagine a group of illustrati who are arranged not as single points of light, but as a web of dependency, can you not? You can imagine how things might be between you and Lexari if there was an added ignorance? Dravus, you know that the illustrati are vain, self-aggrandizing people, competent only insofar as they can hold onto their power. This doesn't have to be the case. We can forge a new system of governance. It is imperative that we do so, if we are to bring the world through these troubled times."

  Dravus saw pleading in her eyes. She didn't want to kill him, though if she did hold three domains and the fame of at least three different people, he had little doubt that she would be capable of ending him. Her voice would raise high enough to split his eardrums, her large black cat would leap on him from behind, and it would take only a single touch for her to end his life. It would be like fighting the Blood Bard all over again, with the dangers now real and multiplied. There was nothing to say that her domains stopped at three; she might have taken power from any number of the illustrati that had disappeared from the Iron Kingdom in the past weeks.

  "You've accumulated a significant amount of power for yourself," said Dravus. "For one who wants to see power less concentrated, you're doing a pretty poor job of it."

  "I agree," said Faye. "Necessity compels us in this matter."

  "Hartwain wasn't a threat," said Dravus. He looked to the still form on the chaise. "She wasn't going to fight against whatever reforms you're in the middle of planning."

  "Of course she was," said Faye. "You've known the woman a day, if that. She was fearsome in her time, more than capable of killing in the same casual way that marks the illustrati. If you escaped the trap we laid for you, I have to imagine that more than one person died. How many of those men and women who fell do you believe truly deserved it?"

  The answer was that almost none of them had any real fault, but Dravus didn't say that. The conspiracy couldn't run so deep as to include dozens of men. This thought had occurred to Dravus while they were making their way down the tower. Nemm had been more ferocious than casual in the way she murdered the men she came across, but there was little compassion or empathy from her until they came across the illustrati of air, someone she knew on a personal level.

  "What do you want from me?" asked Dravus.

  "Want?" asked Faye. "I am more concerned with what I can reasonably expect, given our shaky understanding with one another. I expect that you will join up with your traveling companions again, perhaps in the near future. You will go with them as they try to unravel this attempt at a new system that the world might operate under. Perhaps you will tell them about this encounter, or voice your concerns about the shape that the illustrati impose on society. But in any case, if you all survive long enough eventually a time will come when you will make a stand. Not because of anything that I can offer you, but of your own recognition that it must be done."

  "You're asking me to do something you think I would do anyway," said Dravus.

  "It is the only reason that you and I don't need to come to blows," said Faye. "You're fortunate that I was sent to call on Hartwain, rather than one of the others; they would simply have attacked without waiting for conversation. There would be no hope of you leaving here alive."

  "Which I suppose I should now do," said Dravus.

  "Remember the rule of three, Dravus," said Faye with a solemn voice. "A man and a woman, apparent enemies, meet twice for conversation. The third time cannot end like the first two did. If we see each other again, it will either be as allies or enemies, with the gray washed out by black or white."

  Dravus had no response to that.

  * * *

  Dravus tried not to feel the eyes on his back as he left Hartwain's manor. He still needed to find the others, if that was even possible in a city so large as Parance. While he walked, he mulled over what Faye had said. The Iron King must surely be dead, if this cabal had infiltrated the highest levels of the leadership within the country. The Iron King had been one of the most powerful men in the world, not only one of the greatest illustrati, but the ruler of one of the mightiest countries. He had also been a monster, the terrifying sort of monster that shaped the world around him to be a better place for monsters. Wenaru had been shaped by the Iron King, as had countless others. Faye thought it was the shape of power that led to such things, but Dravus wasn't so sure. He had no good counter-example to look at, no one who lived up to the heroic ideals. When he'd been a minor play
er in Korata's gang, he'd sometimes looked up at the statue of Genthric in the center of Nuncio Plaza. There were stories about the man that were now hundreds of years old, of a statesman and a protector. Something had changed in Dravus's thinking. He had always thought that the legends were exaggerations, makeup caked around a homely face, but now he doubted that there was any core of truth to it at all.

  He walked down the streets, moving more or less at random. It was possible that Faye would try to follow him to Lexari, though Dravus had no idea how he might find Lexari. He made a few surreptitious glances behind him as he walked. He thought he'd imagined a large-bellied man with a cloak and hood, but after three turns he was certain that he was being tracked. Dravus wore simple clothes, with none of the markings of his domain. If someone was following him, they'd likely been doing so since Hartwain's. Dravus cursed silently to himself. It was midday. The streets of Parance held a fair number of people. Speed was one of Dravus's few advantages, but he knew from long experience in Genthric that sprinting in broad daylight would draw the wrong sort of attention. It would be difficult to become anonymous again, especially if the man following him started an earnest pursuit.