Smoke in the Glass

by Chris Humphreys

  She gasped, but not only for the evil she felt pour off him like a wave. For if his face was not as hideous as he’d claimed, it did have black teeth, it did have black eyes.

  ‘Seize him!’ she yelled to her men, already jumping into the boat.

  Then she saw what he held – a sparrow, bright eyes blinking, a tiny thing in that vast hand. Big enough. ‘No!’ she yelled, landing on the deck, grabbing cloth.

  Too late.

  The robe she grasped was empty. The body in it gone. There was a flash of white tail, lost swiftly to the brightness of the sun. All that Freya had left was a memory: of deep evil within black eyes. And the promise of a deeper evil to come.

  11

  Cult

  ‘You look so handsome, my love. Like the first time I saw you.’

  Ferros pulled the razor from his jaw, looked back at Lara in the mirror. Raised an eyebrow. ‘The first time?’

  ‘The first time – in uniform.’ She smiled. ‘The true first time? Well, I did not think much of you at all, then.’

  ‘You took pity on us, nonetheless. Ashtan and me.’

  She laughed. ‘You looked so young and so helpless. And the man chasing you had such a big cleaver.’

  Ferros laughed too, turning to her. ‘Enormous! And he was determined to use it to cut off several of our bits. Bits we knew we’d need.’

  ‘Bits you’d already shown to the man’s daughter.’

  ‘Not … shown, exactly. Hinted at. Offered.’ Ferros shook his head. ‘I think her father was the only man in Balbek who didn’t know that his daughter had slept with half the regiment.’

  ‘A lie. It was no more than a quarter.’ Lara raised herself a little off the bed. ‘You and Ashtan, running down the street, giggling like schoolboys.’

  ‘We weren’t much older. First year in training.’ He turned to her. ‘But the butcher was gaining on us. You opened your door, “In here, you fools,” you hissed. Then you—’

  ‘Hissed? What am I, a snake?’

  ‘… then you threw that blanket over us, threw open the back door, yelled, “There go those bastards!”’

  ‘Ferros! I was far too innocent then to use the word “bastards”.’

  He stepped away from the mirror, came towards her. Soap was on half his face, while his eyes danced with memory. ‘Not too innocent to give me a good whack on the head through the blanket.’

  ‘You were laughing so loudly. I thought the butcher was going to hear and come back. I feared I’d lose bits too then for hiding you.’

  ‘Ashtan was doing the laughing. I got the blow.’ He grinned, leaned down. ‘The first of oh-so-many!’

  Lara lifted her hand, struck him gently across the cheek. ‘Oh, you poor bullied boy!’

  ‘That’s me. A slave to love.’

  He leaned down to kiss her but she pushed him away, settled back against the pillows. ‘My illness, love,’ she said.

  ‘I’d risk it,’ he said, not withdrawing. ‘It’s been two weeks.’

  ‘I am getting better. Soon.’ She placed a palm to his forehead and shoved him away. ‘Besides, you have the festival to go to.’

  He straightened. ‘Dancers? Players? Poetry?’ He said the word like it was a disease. ‘What do I know of all that? I am a soldier.’ He returned to the mirror, put blade to jaw. ‘If you were there, you could nudge me when I fall asleep. Please come.’

  ‘No.’ Lara sniffed deeply. ‘I’d cough and put them all off. Besides,’ she looked at his reflected eyes, ‘I am sure she would rather have you to herself.’

  Perhaps he was prepared for that. The eyes didn’t change, though the razor stopped moving for a heartbeat. ‘I am sure she will not even see me. She performs in her own creation, remember. And there will be hundreds of people there.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll see you,’ she said, but softly and he didn’t look as if he heard. He didn’t speak more, finished shaving, dipped his hands in a second basin, splashed his face, wiped away all soap traces on a towel. He grabbed his cloak from the door hook, swept it around his shoulders, fastened it at the neck with the Genian silver brooch she’d bought for him. Turned to her. ‘Well?’ he asked.

  She studied him. The boy, who had appeared briefly again when they’d talked of Ashtan and escapades, had gone. Only the man stood there now. The soldier. Yet grander than she’d ever seen, for they’d promoted him as soon as he got to the city; he was a full captain now, not just a field one, and they’d made him the uniform to match. One for occasion, not battle. A purple tunic of finest wool that reached mid-thigh, fringed in the black fur of the panther. Leather armour that had required three fittings, moulded exactly to his form with eagles at the shoulders, grasping in their talons the javelins that crossed his chest. More leather swathed his forearms and shins, the greaves there tucked into calfskin, fleece-lined boots. Only two items weren’t new – the sword hanging in its battered sheath at his hip. The tightly wound strips of leather on its grip were stained, not just with sweat. There was blood there too, of the men who’d killed Ashtan, for he’d not cleaned it since killing them. Those who’d dressed him had tried to give him a pretty ceremonial sword. It had been the one thing he’d refused.

  A soldier stood there all right. Yet someone else stood there too. The immortal. And she could see again, as she’d seen from the first, that it hung heavier upon him than his winter cloak.

  She’d stared too long. ‘That bad?’ he asked.

  She rose, went to him, laid a hand on each bicep. ‘Every fibre the fierce warrior,’ she said. ‘Those dancers and players and poets will run screaming when they see you.’

  ‘I hope so.’ He leaned down. ‘Come with me?’

  ‘I cannot.’ She lowered her head so he kissed the top of it.

  ‘Very well,’ he said briskly, turning away to put on his new helmet with its black horsehair crest. ‘I suspect it will take a long time for me to return. The Heaven Road will be busy tonight.’

  ‘I will be here, asleep. Waiting,’ Lara replied.

  ‘Be well,’ he said simply, and was gone.

  She looked at the door he’d closed, listened as his footsteps faded. When, after a minute, they had not returned, she swiftly set about her own dressing. Threw aside the night shift, put on her day one. Even though winter now finally and fully gripped the city in freezing winds and icy rains, she’d been told that where she was now bound would be hot. Still, she slipped her feet into her winter boots and threw her heavy cloak over her shoulders. Those would be discarded later, but she’d also been warned that where she was going was a good walk away and she didn’t want to arrive there chilled.

  She glanced back at the room. When she saw it again, she would be different. If she saw it again. Tonight would decide that. Once she crossed the threshold, she was committed, she knew. So, for one long moment, she hesitated and gazed with some longing at the bed. She had stayed in it even though she was not sick, had only pretended to be for these two weeks, in order to put Ferros off, one condition of what she was to undertake this night. The hardest one – for to make love to him was her greatest joy under sun or stars. And since that moment at the Sanctum, when he’d come back from the ride and she’d seen her, Roxanna, seen them together, he’d wanted to make love to her in a way that he had not since he’d been … smitten with immortality. Perhaps he’d felt he must. For she’d seen again the look in his reflected eye when she’d spoken just now of Roxanna. Seen that same look whenever he’d avoided talking of her in the two weeks since the stables.

  She would lose him tonight. Or she would win him back. It was all in the hands of the gods – and in her blood.

  Or not.

  Hesitation left her. Closing the door behind her, she descended the stair, lowered her head into the bitter wind, ran the few streets and alleys over to the tavern. It was crowded this night, people from the neighbourhood seeking free war
mth in the tavern’s blazing hearth, in the heat of the press of bodies and mugs of hot wine.

  Carellia was at her usual table, a steaming jug before her. ‘Songbird,’ she cried as Lara sat, ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Many – most – change their minds at the last minute. You still can.’

  ‘No. I cannot.’

  ‘Very well.’ The older woman nodded. ‘But are you prepared? Have you abstained from the flesh of beast these two weeks?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘And the flesh of man?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘And have you drunk of the vine or of brewed malt?’

  ‘I have not.’

  ‘Good.’ Carellia smiled her gap-tooth smile. ‘But have a drink now,’ she said, pouring a mug, shoving it across. ‘Because, my songbird, you are going to need it.’

  ‘You look like you need a refill, young man,’ said Lucan, beckoning a servant. Though Ferros would have preferred a clay mug filled with heated winter ale to the chilled, sweet Tinderos wine, it was all that was on offer. Yet around the fourth glass he realised he was developing a taste for it – not for its sweetness, never that, but for its effect. Yet as the servant raised the brimming jug, Ferros hesitated. He was drinking on an empty stomach, barely filled with the mouthfuls of food other servants carried around the hall – trays of tiny quail grilled on skewers, morsels of marinated trout, cubes of ewe’s milk cheese steeped in oil and herbs on slivers of flatbread. Perhaps he’d drunk enough?

  Fuck that, he thought, and lifted the glass. ‘Good, good,’ said Lucan, patting his arm. ‘I hope you are enjoying yourself?’ He looked around, lower lip thrust out in concentration. ‘Different than what you would see in Balbek, I suspect.’

  ‘Somewhat. Men don’t dress as women in Balbek. Nor dance as them. Nor sing with women’s voices.’

  ‘Ah, Streone!’ Lucan laughed. ‘Any excuse to get into a dress. Every year it is the same. Our creator of spectacles hopes that he will wear us down – that we will learn to love the form as much as he – or she, should I say?’ He shook his head. ‘But we never have. So Streone never wins. Well, hasn’t in forty years.’

  ‘Wins?’ Ferros watched the servant move away, heading for the kitchens. Which was odd, because even though he had a full jug of the wine, he did not fill the glasses thrust at him on every side. He turned back to Lucan. ‘Wins what?’

  ‘The pieces which you have seen tonight, the last of which is still to come, compete with each other. They have been reduced from fifty to these ten. Strangely, Streone’s always makes the ten.’ Lucan laughed again, continued, ‘The judges, of which I am one, award wreaths to three winners. Oak leaf for third place, holly for second, and silver leaf for the ultimate winner.’

  Ferros grunted. ‘And how do you choose? There’s been poetry – if you can call it that, I didn’t understand a word. That singing and … dancing, I suppose, from Streone. Two men shouted at each other pretending to be warriors – though neither looked like they’d ever wielded a real sword.’

  ‘Blunt as ever, young man. We should have you as a judge next year.’

  ‘I’d rather die,’ Ferros replied. ‘Which, of course, I can’t.’

  If Lucan saw the hint to talk further about immortality – the Tinderos wine was making Ferros bold enough to seek the answers he still hadn’t received – he ignored it. ‘And speaking of winning,’ the older man said, running his hand over the shining dark globe of his head, ‘my daughter tells me you were magnificent in the javelin race yesterday. The first time immortals have won in over twenty years.’

  ‘You did not watch?’

  ‘Alas.’ Lucan shrugged. ‘Affairs of state.’

  Ferros nodded. He still felt the race in the delightful, familiar aching of his body. The four mortals they raced against had been formidable – Wattenwolden, huge bearded horse warriors from the northern forests who Ferros would have been pleased to serve with. Their two fellow immortals had been – adequate, losing their individual bouts, but only by a javelin’s throw apiece. He and Roxanna, though; they’d been, he had to admit it, and as Lucan had just oberved, magnificent. In the last round they’d ridden better and thrown better than the top two tribesmen, with Ferros’s last javelin – cleaving the bullseye – deciding it all. Roxanna, who he’d not spoken to since their ride two weeks previously, had still said almost nothing as they rode and threw. But at that throw, which gave the immortals their victory, she favoured him with a smile, a touch of her fingers on his arm, and one word.

  ‘Superb.’

  He’d looked for her, of course, from the moment he’d arrived at the Sanctum on the Hill this night. He was happy that she mainly ignored him now, of course he was. He’d decided, after that first ride, his race against her, that he would focus only on Lara. That a three-hundred-year-old immortal was beyond him. Yet when he did not see her he was disappointed. He’d have liked to be able to convey to her that he had made his choice. Truth be told, he would rather reject than be rejected.

  ‘Ah. Here we are.’ Lucan’s voice, and the sound of instruments striking one chord in harmony, drew him from his thoughts. ‘Perhaps, young man, this last piece will be more to your tastes?’

  Ferros looked to the end of the hall, to the raised dais where all the performances had taken place. A dozen women came onto the stage. His sight, which had begun to blur a little after four glasses of wine, seemed to have been cleared by the fifth for he could see every detail. They all wore half-masks – blue, gold and silver – the lips beneath made fuller with crimson paint. They were barely dressed, with sheer silk over their breasts, a fall of shimmering cloth over their loins. Each body was stunning, any one could have been modelled in marble for a goddess. Only one was dark, so dark by contrast – and Roxanna’s body, with those long legs, slim waist and full breasts, was the most stunning of all.

  The dozen women moved onto the dais. Each adopted a different position there – crouched, prone, stretched high. Roxanna was in the centre, a dark sun to their bright satellites. She stood tall, her hands raised to the ceiling, head tipped over her arched back, long black hair flowing unbound behind her, reaching her waist. All the dancers held their poses for a long moment until, from somewhere hidden, came the sound of knuckle-bones whispering over stretched hide, and a single string plucked on a low note. Slowly, they began to move.

  An unfolding of limbs, poses flowing gently to other poses, then flowing on. Each dancer’s movements were separate, yet it was as if the same breeze moved them or they were caught in the same wave. Only Roxanna did not move, held her pose, the still centre to it all … until all others froze and she straightened, head and hair rising, then reached to seize the long golden hair of the dancer before her, pulling it slowly down, down. The woman arched her back – and a cry slipped from her red, swollen lips. It was animal, it was human, it was pain and pleasure, and the sound brought an echo in Ferros’s throat, growl and groan. His hand, which had held a glass, was empty. Whoever he’d been talking to had taken it. What he realized he needed was to be closer, to the white body that had given out that sound, that was being pulled hard and enfolded in the black one, who cried out as she received it before both were swallowed in a collision of hair, and flesh and moans.

  More than one drum played now, more than one instrument was plucked, or sounded, the beat and volume building. The rest of the crowd was moving too, pushing forward. But they were courtiers, Ferros was a soldier. Swiftly he shoved his way to the dais. As he reached it, the women upon it split apart; were pushed apart by the force at their centre. By Roxanna, who stood tall again, raising her arms again to the ceiling. The women fell back, cried out as if struck; while Roxanna, looking straight at him, took her lower lip in her teeth and bit it. Blood ran down her chin.

  Sound exploded – strings, drums, flutes. Moans. And the world went mad.

&n
bsp; Within the maze of lanes down which she led Lara, Carellia had stopped twice already and asked the question.

  ‘Are you certain?’ she’d said.

  ‘Yes,’ Lara had replied, firmer each time.

  The third asking was in the darkest of alleys, in a part of town she’d never been before, up on the rocky slopes in the east, where only the outcasts – the sick, the destitute, the deranged – were said to live. Whispers came from shadows, groans from roofless huts; there was a sudden scream, cut off. The rain fell, chill and pitiless. Her hooded cloak, long since soaked, hung heavy on her shoulders. She shivered, coughed. If she’d feigned sickness before, she would not have to soon.

  If she lived.

  Carellia pulled her into a doorway. Beyond its rotten wood, something scurried away. ‘This is the last time I will ask you, songbird. Your last chance to change your mind.’ The old whore’s voice had got stronger, her eyes no longer danced, her grip on Lara’s arm was firm. ‘You do not yet know where the cult lives. No one can know but its acolytes. If you say no now, I will lead you back. You will drink hot wine, sleep in a warm bed. Life will go on for whatever span the gods have chosen for you.’ She leaned closer. ‘But if you say yes, your old life is over. For we will enter the sanctum that none but believers may enter. Once entered, there is no going back. You leave as an immortal – or you do not leave at all.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘So I ask for the last time: are you certain?’

  She wasn’t. How could she be, how could anyone? But she also knew she had no choice. There was no life back there, however hot the wine, or warm the bed – for Ferros would not be in it with her. She’d known, from the moment she’d seen him with Roxanna, that she would lose him to her. Unless she said yes now. With that word, she had a chance. She had none if she said no because there was no life without him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.