Smoke in the Glass

by Chris Humphreys

  The words upon both men’s forearms were clearer. They were in the ancient tongue, learned but hardly spoken at all these days. Nevertheless he’d had it drilled into him at his first school.

  ‘What does it say?’ Lara asked. For a weaver’s daughter, reading was not a skill thought worth learning. Ferros had taught her some, but none of the old language.

  He pointed at the warrior. ‘You could guess that, given his role.’

  ‘War?’

  ‘Strength.’

  ‘So the other is … weakness?’

  He smiled. ‘That wouldn’t be very inspiring. No. He is a scholar. His word is Wisdom.’

  ‘They have the same face, don’t they? One has a beard but—’

  ‘Yes. They are “the Twins”.’

  The ship was getting close to passing under the stone bridge of the joined hands. ‘Why do they not look at each other when they shake?’ she said.

  ‘They face away because, between them, they guard against all the world’s dangers.’

  ‘And that word?’ Lara pointed, almost directly up now, to the carved word shared by the two hands. ‘Is it “peace”?’

  ‘It is.’ He remembered the quote from his schooldays. ‘“Between Strength and Wisdom lies Peace.”’

  She reached, took his hand, squeezed it. ‘So shall we find peace here, Ferros?’

  He didn’t answer her. That look, that she had taken from him for a few moments in the cabin, was back. Suddenly they were in shadow and she shivered. Then they were warm again, having passed beneath the stone hands and out again into the sunshine.

  ‘Welcome to Corinthium,’ he said, dropping her hand, turning away. ‘We should pack.’

  They didn’t have much, so it took very little time. When they came back onto the deck again, each wore their one spare, and slightly better tunic. The Black Cormorant was already deep into the basin, its mast a single, small tree in a vast forest. Vessels of all sizes, from mighty seafaring three-masted galleons to skiffs with nothing but a brace of oars, jostled for right of way. Curses came in every language of the empire, from the guttural bark of the Wattenwolden, the northern forest tribes, to the sibilant hiss of the Southern Great Lake dwellers. Their captain, Mikon, showed his experience, threading a course for the main docks, that grew rapidly nearer. Though it wasn’t simply skill that sped them through. Glancing up, Ferros noted the red flag of the Sanctum now flying from the mast. No other captain wanted to impede government business, not when fines could cost him a quarter of his cargo.

  Similar considerations saw them swiftly at the dock, though they were roundly cursed by the captain of a carrack that was all but tied up when they approached – until he too noticed the red at their masthead. Speedy hands made the Cormorant secure, the gangplank was run out fast and they descended it. Lara swayed, sea legs unsteady, and Ferros caught her, held her. The noise, especially after two weeks at sea, was extraordinary, an assault in all those languages, as ships were swiftly unloaded and goods whisked away onto carts drawn by ass, bullock and man. ‘What now?’ she whispered.

  Gan the tutor had joined them. As black as midnight and from the Xan people of the mountains below the southern desert, he was even taller than Ferros, stood a head above the crowd, so was able to answer her. ‘They come,’ he said, and soon they also saw what he had – a palanquin, borne by three men at each corner pole. Its walls were four squares of emerald silk, sloping up to a gold-topped centre crown. It was a moving tent and, like their ship at sea, with the red banner of the Sanctum rising from its apex, the crowds parted for it.

  A curt command came from within, and the palanquin was set down. A hand, heavy with topaz, emerald and ruby, opened a gap in the shimmering silk. A rich turquoise sleeve followed the hand and then a face appeared. It startled them both, because its original features were hard to discern so enhanced were they in paint. Dark eyes lay in deep vermilion pools, thickened silver lashes opening and closing over them like curtains. Fair skin glistened in gold dust, rising over the dome of a forehead to a wide shank of hair dyed red as blood, and flowing down bare shoulders to curl onto a similarly shimmering chest. Or breast. Ferros could not detect whether this was a man, woman or something in between, and the voice, when it came, gave no further clue.

  ‘Welcome, warrior of the west, loyal servant of the empire,’ the emissary trilled, stepping from the carriage. ‘May the gods bless your coming, may the two moons shine kind light, may the seven hills not trip your feet, may your path to the Sanctum be bright.’

  Ferros swallowed. He’d learned in his long-ago schooldays that Corinthium had elaborate etiquette and rituals for every occasion. Greetings and partings were some of the most complicated. He also wasn’t sure if what had been spoken was a poem and whether he was required to reply with another. But his schooldays were indeed long ago, and poetry for him was a horse galloped bareback along a dune. He couldn’t think of a phrase to reply with except, eventually, ‘Thank you.’

  The eyelid curtains fell. Opened slowly, with the gaze becoming keener. ‘You are Ferros, officer of the Ninth Balbek Riders?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Oh.’ The eyes swept up and down him, narrowing as they took in the simplicity of his clothes. ‘Well, well,’ was all that came then. Finally, the … person looked up and said, ‘I am the poet Streone Lascartis. Also the Innovator of the Great Theatre. And I am sent …’ the word was laced with distaste, ‘to bring you to the Sanctum. Come,’ a jewelled hand parted silk again, ‘you will join me in here. Your servant girl will be guided with your bags to your quarters. They are close by.’

  Streone. It was a name applied to both men and women. ‘Sir?’ Ferros ventured.

  ‘Hmm?’

  The query gave nothing away in terms of gender. Ferros continued, ‘Lara is not my servant but … but my wife.’ They’d decided on the voyage that even if it were not true it might be safer for her to be so named.

  ‘Wife?’ Streone looked Lara up and down differently, though with equal contempt. ‘Well, well, she will have to wait for you at your lodgings. I am to bring only you to Lucan, and no other. There is no room.’

  ‘Uh …’

  Ferros peered, could see that the palanquin was large, even if its main occupant also was. And with three burly men at each pole –

  Streone could obviously read that thought. ‘We do not go to the Sanctum in this. Through the streets that would take a day. No, we go by the Heaven Road. And there’s only room in that carriage for two.’ To Ferros’s blank stare he added, ‘Up there! Up there!’

  Ferros looked. He hadn’t noted it before, the roofs of the different towers and lower buildings being so conjoined. Now he saw two parallel cables running between towers that rose up and vanished over the first hill. And as he looked, a large woven basket appeared not far from them and began a climb to the first tower.

  Heaven Road, he thought. Someone had mentioned it once, some trader drunk in a tavern. He’d thought the man had been trying to take advantage of a gullible provincial soldier. He swallowed again. ‘Nevertheless,’ he began, ‘my wife—’

  ‘Go,’ Lara said. ‘You wouldn’t get me up in that anyway. You’ll return later, will you?’

  Ferros turned to Streone. ‘Will I?’

  ‘Once I have delivered you, you are no longer my concern.’ The emissary shrugged. ‘Yes, probably. If you request it.’

  ‘And you say someone will see my wife to lodgings?’

  There was no reply, just a click of fingers. A small man in a simple white tunic appeared, clasped his hands before him, and bowed over them. ‘It is an inn nearby,’ Streone said, ‘the Haven,’ adding, as he saw Ferros’s look, ‘a respectable one, trust me.’ He leaned down and whispered to the small man, who nodded. ‘Now, come. We have delayed long enough.’

  The emissary climbed into the palanquin. Ferros turned, pressed Lara’s hand, and fol
lowed.

  She watched the vehicle borne away through the parting crowd. She turned back – Gan the tutor had gone, she didn’t know where. Only the servant was there, and he already had their few bags in his hands. He nodded his head in the direction they should take and set off.

  ‘Gods help me,’ she murmured, and followed.

  Once he’d got over the terror of flight – he’d never been off the ground higher than the top of a cedar tree before – Ferros found he enjoyed the sensation … and the view. Between the fourth and the fifth hill was a deeper valley and the basket – it really was little more than that, with Streone filling more than half of it and pointedly ignoring him – rose high above it. So high that Ferros was able to take in the whole city – from the Twins at the harbour entrance to the Sanctum, their destination, its walls glowing like a lit hearth in the sun’s last beams. Here at the centre of the world, the sun set fast. Maybe a half-hour passed before they glided onto a stone terrace, and already the city below was dark, and glittering with lights, like a million dancing fireflies.

  They stopped. A servant opened the door set in the wicker. ‘Follow,’ commanded Streone, stepping from the basket, and Ferros obeyed. His guide led him down passageways and through chambers large and small, all softly lit by torches in sconces made of huge pink clam shells, flames flickering within. He – or she – moved fast and Ferros had little time to study what he passed through. All was made, or faced at least, in marble of different shades. From niches statues peered, nymphs, satyrs, gods, warriors. Some rooms had furniture: desks with scrolls upon them and other scrolls, thousands of them, lining the walls. There were no fires anywhere. It was autumn, the evenings drawing in, and the hill was high up. Wearing only his light tunic, Ferros felt cold for the first time in an age.

  They paused before a door set in a wall, flush and almost invisible, at the end of an oblong chamber with padded benches rising in four ranks either side, some kind of meeting hall. Streone opened the door and, with a sigh, started up the stair beyond it. It curled up and up, spiralling around a centre column, and the guide’s breaths came more and more heavily as they mounted. After a score of turns around the spiral, Streone halted before another door, gasped ‘Thank the gods,’ and knocked.

  A man’s voice came, soft yet clear through the wood. ‘Come.’

  The room they entered was different from all before it. It was warm, flames in a fireplace set into one of the walls. Eight walls, Ferros noted immediately, and each one faced not with marble but with wood. Aliantha, he could smell it immediately, the scent making him suddenly ache for his home and the coastal forests near Balbek. Unlike the sparseness he’d passed through, this room was comfortable, a place to linger – and to work, certainly, for there was a long oak desk opposite him against one of the eight walls, between two curtained doorways that gave out onto the night. The desk was covered in paper, maps weighted open with small statues and knives, scrolls in neat ranks, pens in stands. But there were also places to rest in the room – a divan piled with furs before the hearth between two low chairs plumped with cushions.

  A man stood before the desk, holding a piece of parchment. He was tall, near as tall as Ferros, dressed simply, richly, in a blue, ankle-length wool tunic. Flamelight flickered in reflection on the dome of his black, shaven head. He had a city beard, neat and trimmed around lips and jaw. Laying the parchment down, he spoke.

  ‘My name is Lucan,’ he said, crossing the room, his voice from the city too, cultured, rich and resonant. ‘I am the leader of the Council of Lives. Welcome, young man. Welcome to …’ He paused, and Ferros waited for the name of the city. But the man smiled and continued, ‘… immortality.’

  Ferros knew what he was now. He thought he’d accepted his fate. But hearing it pronounced by this man, from whom power radiated like heat did from his hearth, in an eyrie at the top of the world, made his knees buckle. He fought for balance, stepping forward. But the man had immediately taken his arm and, if he noticed the stagger, did not say so.

  ‘You must be exhausted from your journey,’ he said, using Ferros’s motion to guide him forward to the divan. Letting him sit – lowering him, truly – he continued. ‘I will send for refreshment. Streone,’ he called, without looking, ‘be so good as to tell Graco to bring a tray.’

  ‘Of course, Lord Lucan.’

  Ferros, still slightly dazed, remembered his courtesy, and turned. ‘Thank you for your guidance here.’

  ‘It was a … pleasure.’ The pause and tone indicated clearly that it was not.

  His guide was at the door when Lucan spoke again. ‘Do the preparations for the festival go well, Streone?’

  ‘Very, lord.’ The considerable chest was puffed out. ‘I believe it will be one of the greatest ever seen.’

  ‘Not like last time then?’

  Streone sagged, face crimsoning. ‘No, indeed. As you know the … mishaps were not my fault. I—’

  ‘The tray, Streone? Our guest?’

  ‘Indeed, sir. Indeed. Thank you.’ With a short bow, the emissary stumbled from the room.

  ‘Was he very rude to you?’ Lucan said, moving round to hold his hands out to the fire.

  He, thought Ferros. So. ‘He was … polite,’ he murmured.

  ‘Polite? That is most unlike him.’ Lucan chuckled and turned. ‘But his rudeness is compensated for by a great talent for spectacle. Have you heard of our early winter festival? The celebration of Simbala?

  Simbala, Ferros thought. Gan had talked of her. Goddess of death and birth. ‘I … no … maybe … some.’

  ‘You will enjoy it. There are plays, epic poems, races on horse and foot. Perhaps you would like to take part?’

  Ferros felt his tongue like a wedge of wood in his mouth. He couldn’t get it to move properly and respond. It annoyed him, this dread that held him, had done so almost from the moment he’d known his new truth. He, who would launch himself alone into a fight against half a dozen Sarphardi warriors, with a battle cry on his lips and joy in his heart, behaving like a schoolboy on his first day, staring at the rod in the tutor’s hand.

  Speak, he commanded himself. Are you an ox?

  The door opened. Someone came in. Lucan waved a hand and Ferros heard a tray being placed, footsteps, the door closing again. Lucan moved away. ‘We have ice wine from Tinderos?’ he called. ‘Brandy? Ale?’

  ‘Ale,’ replied Ferros, adding, ‘please.’

  Lucan returned, handed him a goblet, raised a small, exquisite crystal glass of his own. ‘To eternal life,’ he said, and sipped.

  Ferros drank off half the goblet, and smiled. He was used to the light wheat beers of the dry south. This was a northern ale, malty and sweet, full of complexities. Strong too, he felt that in a moment. It was as if his neck lengthened and relaxed. He wondered if it was laced with anything, distillations of poppy or hemp. He decided not to care.

  Lucan came and sat in a chair beside him. ‘I will not keep you long. You have had a hard journey and I know how this city can … overwhelm at first. It did me, when I first came.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Over four hundred years ago. It took me twenty to fully grasp all that had happened to me. One moment, forty years old and dead of plague in a filthy fishing village in Valraisos, the next,’ he shifted, ‘reborn.’ He nodded. ‘When I arrived at the Sanctum, I couldn’t read, write, hold a conversation – about anything other than nets and tides. Now,’ he raised his crystal till firelight danced in its facets, in the purple liquid within, ‘I can tell the subtleties in different vintages of Tinderos wine.’ He smiled. ‘Oh, Ferros, the wonders that await you!’ He drained his glass, smacked his lips, stood. ‘I will let you go and get some sleep now. Forgive me for wanting to meet you immediately. We get so few new immortals. It is a day to celebrate. Tomorrow your wonderful journey begins. You will have questions—’

  His tongue was freed. Ferr
os didn’t care that it was the ale that did it. ‘I have a question now.’

  Lucan, who’d stepped towards the door, paused. For the first time, something other than pleasant welcome was on his face. ‘I am sure. Many. They will all be dealt with by your tutors when you return to the Sanctum to begin your studies.’

  He waved his hand at the door again. Ferros ignored it. ‘I’d like one answered now, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Speak then.’ Lucan’s tone had turned as icy as his wine.

  ‘Can I die?’

  Lucan stared at him a moment, opened his mouth. But it was someone else who answered.

  ‘You can. It is not easy. And what a waste that would be.’

  She came through the silk curtains that were blowing in from the terrace with the sea breeze. A simple emerald dress encased her but was cut in places that revealed near as much as it concealed. The skin that showed at face, shoulder, neck and above the plunge of breast was, like Lucan’s, a brown just a shade from midnight black, and given by birth, far darker than the brown of Lara, given by the sun. He glimpsed more as she moved into the room, for the dress was slit down the sides to show each long, muscled leg. Her thick black hair was gathered in profuse disorder atop her head and when she stopped before him – and Ferros realised he was standing without any memory of doing so – he looked into eyes as green as a forest in the autumn, speckled with autumn’s red and gold.

  ‘Roxanna,’ she said, stretching out a hand. And Ferros, who had never done such a thing in his life, bent and kissed it.

  ‘My delight these three hundred years,’ Lucan said, and Ferros felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach, all his breath taken by a vision of these two immortals entwined – until she restored his breath with her next words.

  ‘Oh, Father, don’t you know,’ Roxanna laughed as she squeezed the hand still holding hers, ‘that you must never reveal a lady’s age.’