Smoke in the Glass

by Chris Humphreys

Something bright came into Carellia’s eyes. ‘Good,’ she said. Reaching past Lara, she pressed on the door. It gave and Lara, who’d been leaning against it for strength, stumbled in. Into a heavy leather curtain which she pushed against, past. Beyond it was heat and a dim, flickering torchlight that was yet so bright compared to the wet, cold darkness outside that she had to close her eyes. When she opened them again she saw that the door, which Carellia shut behind her before passing her, had concealed something unexpected – a long narrow cavern, hewn into the rock face of the hill behind the street. It was filled with people whose gender she couldn’t tell, for all were hooded like her, their faces in shadow despite the torches that burned in sconces along the walls.

  These people shifted to either side, forming a rough, narrow alley leading to the cave’s end. It was brighter there, for five torches flared, lighting two figures who stood on a small, shallow platform, watching her approach. Both wore white robes and were masked, one as an eagle, one a bear. The eagle held another robe which he or she draped around the one who joined them now – Carellia, bending her head for the mask that the bear fitted to her, to become a lioness.

  She beckoned and Lara walked between the silent watching lines, to join the two others who stood before the dais: a young man, with a terrible disfiguring growth over half his face, and an old, stooped woman.

  Carellia opened her arms wide. The voice that came from beneath the mask was hers, and not hers. She stood straight, different from the slouching whore who’d told her tales in a tavern for wine. ‘Welcome, last of the seekers,’ she called. The eagle dipped a goblet into a pot that stood on a brazier behind him. Then he handed it to Carellia. Steam rose from it, and she held it high. ‘Simbala, Goddess of Birth and Death and Birth, here is your blood, your sacred juices. Placed by you in the vine of life. Visit us now, through it. Join us here, with it. Offer your blessing in its taste.’

  She raised it to her lips, took a big sip. A sigh ran through the crowd, and people came forward. ‘Wait!’ Carellia called, and the people froze. ‘The seekers first.’ She bent and held the goblet before Lara’s mouth. ‘Enter, Seeker. Enter the world. Meet Simbala.’ Eyes glimmered within the mask. ‘Drink it all.’

  There was no question of disobeying. There could be no hesitation now. Bending to the cup, Lara drank.

  Ferros was unaware of the exact moment when it happened. When the dancers and those who watched them, the two groups, became one. He’d been there, at the very front, all his focus on the extraordinary things that were occurring on the stage. He’d never seen bodies move that way, never experienced music and movement blended like this. He was a soldier, and dancing was something that happened amongst the tribes on the wilder fringes of empire. He’d observed it, mocked it as primitive. Yet he could not mock it now, for he was dancing, everyone was dancing. There was a freedom in his limbs they’d never had before. In his mind too. He did not care how people danced around him, nor care if they saw how he did. For the first time he understood the power of Tinderos wine. If this was what it did to him, he’d never drink beer again.

  Then, the merging. Some dancers descended to the floor of the room, some who had been the audience were now on the stage. The music was a frenzy, tune lost to rhythm, notes from flute and strings like the cries of beasts, caught and held in the net of drumbeat. He whirled, staggered. If he came near to falling, someone was there to push him up. Though each danced separately, all took care of those around them. He felt, for the first time since he’d come to Corinthium, that he was part of something greater, with a kinship to those around him that he’d thought he’d lost for ever when he left his regiment. So many in the room, in this crowd, were immortals. He was immortal. And he knew, suddenly, certainly, and for the very first time, that if this was how life could feel, he would happily live it for ever.

  He threw back his head, howled his delight. Others howled around him. When he lowered it again, she was before him.

  Every dancer was superb. Roxanna was beyond them all. He’d been mesmerised by the way her long limbs could move, how she threaded her darkness through the light that surrounded her, separate, until totally entwined. On the stage, though, she’d been dancing with others, for others. Here she was dancing only for him.

  With him. For the longest time, though their movements were fast and they came so close, they did not touch, as if their bodies had a layer of warm air forcing them apart. Until the moment they did, when he reached and ran one white finger up one dark inner thigh. Then all that was apart was together, they were joined at shoulder, chest, hip. Parting, linking again, spinning away, spinning in. The dance took him entirely and he lost himself to it, lost what was him, what was her.

  He didn’t know how what happened did. But the crowd was gone, the room had changed, he was alone with her and their dance had become something else – or rather it had become the promise that had been there from the moment she first walked out and arched her back upon the stage. No, the promise made in the moment when she entered from the balcony on his first day in Corinthium. The music was gone, yet somehow still throbbed in his mind, the pulse of it in his blood, in hands that moved all over her, as hers moved all over him.

  Everything was shed – his armour, his tunic, his restraint. He pulled the cloth from her breasts, his rough soldier’s hands gently rubbing the silk across them before moving it aside, before sinking down and taking one huge and hard nipple softly in his mouth. But she didn’t want soft, she didn’t want gentle, she cried out, pulled him up to her, bit his lip just before she sank her tongue deep into his mouth. They were still dancing but it was different, it wasn’t just feet on a floor. There was a couch, there was a chair, there was him above, there was her above, there was a time they both faced the distant sea, steam rising into the winter air, with her belly on a wooden balustrade and him behind her with his hands around her neck, squeezing. Delight came and went and came again, more intense than he’d ever felt, all joined and as inseparable as their bodies. Somehow they found a bed, and their movements slowed, slowed until the dream that had held him since that last glass of Tinderos wine merged into a dreamless sleep. They were still joined, at every point it was possible still to touch. And when they parted it was like losing a limb. Yet though he reached with a moan, he did not wake, for her voice was in his ear, soothing him with, ‘But a moment, love.’

  ‘Lara,’ he murmured, as deeper sleep took him.

  All senses merged, each into other. She could touch sight, taste scent, see sound. Waves of that rose from the people who lay about the room – all, like Lara, curled up with arms wrapping their knees to their chests. All moaned, but no longer in the nausea that had first come. In ecstasy now. In wonder.

  She thought she might have been lying there for hours but she couldn’t be sure. Time had dissolved also, along with the earth and her body. She had flown across the sea to visit her parents. They were no longer furious with her, for leaving with Ferros. They understood now, gave their blessing. All their concern was about what she was doing now.

  ‘Are you sure, little one?’ her mother asked.

  ‘Is it safe, my darling?’ asked her father.

  She had reassured them, she thought. Even though she wasn’t sure – if she should do this, if it was safe. It wasn’t – and she had to. Because the next place she’d travelled had been Agueros, the Sanctum on the Hill. Where her reason for life was. She’d found him, seen him in a way she never had before. He was dancing, staring at the woman who danced before him, joined to him. Roxanna. She could see that he was lost – to the dance, to her. There was but one way of getting him back.

  Not safe. Not sure.

  The only people not prone were masked. The eagle, the bear and the lioness moved among the moans, checking, reassuring. Lara knew that there were humans under the masks but the bodies had long since been given up to feather and fur.

  The lioness bent over her. ‘It is time.�
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  Lara sat up, swayed. All around her, people did the same. Clutching each other, they rose. A man helped her to her feet, held her while she steadied. He grinned. ‘I have seen them, sister,’ he said. ‘They live in Simbala’s palace. They wait for me.’

  He didn’t explain who waited with the goddess of birth and death and birth. Turned, just as she did, to the gong that was being sounded by the bear on the dais. All shuffled forward, though they left a gap right at the front where Lara now saw the disfigured boy and the old woman who’d stood there before. She joined them.

  The bear struck the gong three more times, then set it aside, though the final note clung in the air, as visible to Lara as the smoke that guttered from the torches. The lioness stepped forward. ‘Did Simbala show you wonders?’ she called.

  ‘Yes!’ came the called response.

  ‘And do you believe she has more wonders yet to show?’

  ‘Yes!’ This cry came even louder and the mouth beneath the half-mask – Lara could see it now, changing shape, teeth withdrawing, fur receding, until it was human again – shaped a smile.

  ‘Yes,’ the lioness – Carellia – said. ‘For we know that Simbala’s gifts never die. We dwell here, or we dwell in her palace – for ever.’ She looked down, and laid her wooden stave on the young man’s left shoulder. ‘Why do you seek that choice today?’

  He started. Half his face was covered in scar and scab. ‘You see me,’ he cried. ‘My body is eating itself. No doctor, no apothecary, can cure me. But if the goddess will only favour me, if I can die and be born again,’ he looked up to the roof, ‘then I will be healed and live for ever! Either that, or dwell for ever in Simbala’s palace.’

  Cries came at that, joyful shouts of praise. The lioness nodded, then laid her staff on the old woman’s shoulder. ‘And you?’

  The woman’s voice was rough, from the local streets. ‘Three husbands I’ve given to the sea. But the fourth is still alive – and thirty years younger than me!’ Some laughter came at that, and she joined it. ‘So what choice do I have? Live till he gets old enough to appreciate me? Or go and join the ones I’ve lost, in Simbala’s palace?’

  More cries, more support. Carellia raised the staff, lowered it again. Lara closed her eyes as the wood touched her, readied herself to speak. ‘And you, child?’

  She breathed deep, answered. ‘The man I love is an immortal. It is either join him here – or wait for him for ever in Simbala’s palace.’

  Louder cries came at this. Another smile from beneath the lion mask. ‘You are all worthy. You are all ready. Simbala awaits you, one way or another.’ She turned, gave her stick to the eagle, took something from the bear. When she turned back, Lara saw that it was a long, thick-bladed steel dagger. She raised it high into the air – and men rushed forward, seized Lara’s arms, seized those of the old woman and the youth beside her. From around the cave low voices came, one word, one name, chanted. Building. Summoning.

  ‘Sim-ba-la. Sim-ba-la. Sim-ba-la.’

  Again and again the word came, louder and louder, the crowd pressing forward behind the three, drawing close to be part of what was to happen. She tensed, struggled against those who held her, then went limp. For memory came, of Ferros dancing. He had never danced for her, with her. Now perhaps he would.

  With a great cry, the lioness raised the dagger higher still, then swept it down across the boy’s neck. Blood spurted onto lion fur. A second swipe opened the old woman’s neck, red fountaining high. Lara saw the knife raised again – but this time it paused for a moment … and she saw something else. A change in the eyes within the eye-slits. And she knew suddenly, certainly, that it wasn’t Carellia, the old whore she’d befriended in a tavern, who was scything the dagger down. Lara knew who it was, but it was too late to cry her name, or to do anything about it.

  Too late to do anything but die.

  Ferros woke alone, in a room he didn’t recognise, with no memory of how he had got there. He was shivering, lying naked on a bed with a chill wind blowing over him from a door open to the morning, curtains streaming in on the breeze. He got up, winced. He felt tender all over, as if he’d been in battle. Looking down fed that idea – there were scratches on his body, and a bruise the size of his hand on his right thigh. But the sight brought no clarity, nor did the view from the balcony he hobbled to – by the sun, it was late morning, and he was in a room high up in the Sanctum, in one of its eastern towers. Only when he laid his hand upon the wooden balustrade did a memory come, which could have come from a dream. It brought the faintest stirring at his groin – which, he realised, ached as much as the rest of him.

  He walked back to the bed, sat heavily upon it. What had happened? The last thing he remembered was talking with Lucan and then Roxanna taking to the stage with her troupe of dancers. No, he remembered going forward to the stage to get a closer look. At her. But then? He looked around seeking other clues. The sheets were a mess – torn in places, traced in blood. What he’d worn was scattered over the floor. His sword was out of its scabbard. There was blood on its edge too.

  He went over, picked up his dress tunic. It was torn at the shoulder. He put it on anyway, then sat on the bed to pull on his boots. Got one on, stared at the other. His head didn’t hurt exactly but it wasn’t right. As if there was a piece of it missing.

  There was noise on the stair. He pulled the other boot on and stood to face the door.

  Roxanna entered. She wore a simple, long-sleeved dress, was covered from neck to ankle. She carried a tray. There was a pitcher on it, fruit. ‘So,’ she said, stopping and looking him up and down, ‘How is my lover this morning?’

  Her words, the smile in her voice and on her mouth, the purpling at her neck above the dress, brought a little more back. ‘Did we—’ he began, broke off.

  She frowned. ‘Oh Ferros! You are not going to claim you don’t remember? Especially when it was so … memorable? A woman could feel insulted.’

  ‘I … of course, I …’

  ‘Come,’ she interrupted. ‘Sit, before you fall over.’ She put the tray down, sat beside it, patted the bed.

  ‘Perhaps … perhaps I should go.’

  ‘Running off?’ She thrust out her lower lip. ‘Again, should I feel insulted?’ Then she smiled. ‘If I was an ordinary woman, I might. Soon you will remember that I am not, and that what we had was not ordinary but … extraordinary.’ She stretched back. ‘It has been … many years since any man, mortal or immortal, made me feel close to what you did last night.’

  Ferros sat. Memory was returning. But though he remembered pleasure, he also remembered something else. ‘I have to go. There is someone who will be worried about me.’

  ‘You forget this too, Ferros.’ Her voice was a little harder now. ‘You told your someone that you would have to stay the night here. You are to receive the answer to your question as to your purpose here, this day.’

  ‘I … am?’ It came out as a question. He thought he’d told Lara that he would return late and he could not recall being told that today was the day for an answer. Shaking his head, Ferros picked up a mug, drank. It contained squeezed pomegranate juice and it restored him a little. He put it down, looked at Roxanna. She had settled back onto her elbows. Her breasts were thrust up against the silk of her dress. The bruise at her neck was purple under her black skin. He glanced out to the balcony, coloured.

  She saw the look, laughed. ‘Good. I want you to remember, Ferros.’ She sat up, slid a hand under his tunic, onto his thigh.

  He let it lie. ‘Lady …’ he began.

  Footsteps on the stair. The hand withdrew and he stood to face the door. ‘Master,’ said the servant who rushed in. ‘There’s been a message from the city. A … an accident. You are to come immediately.’

  ‘An accident? To whom?’ He stepped closer. ‘What kind of accident?’ he roared.

  The servant stepped back,
frightened. ‘Forgive me, master, I don’t know. That’s all I know. You are to come.’

  Ferros stooped, snatched up his sword, sheathed it, slung the belt around his shoulders. He turned to Roxanna. ‘I must—’

  ‘Of course you must.’ She stood as she spoke, laid a hand on his arm. ‘I’ll tell my father. Return later, when you are able. For we have so much to discuss.’

  Without another word, he ran from the room. He didn’t look back, so he didn’t see her smile.

  A week had passed. Ferros knelt at the altar, his lips moving in unaccustomed ways. In prayer. The only time he prayed, and those times rare, was before a battle or raid, his words supplicating Mavros, God of War. Here, though, he was in a temple of Simbala, Goddess of Birth and Death and Birth. His goddess now, he supposed, even more than Mavros had been, since he’d become immortal. But he did not say his prayers aloud for each started with her name. Lara. And her name was forbidden now, she was outcast, a violator of every law of man and god, and those around him would know it and clamour against him.

  ‘Lara,’ he thought, prayed. ‘Let your spirit find rest in your journey. Lara, let your sin be forgiven. Lara … come back!’

  His eyes watered. He who had only cried once and briefly when Ashtan died, and once again in the courtyard after the ride with Roxanna, but had not for his parents, nor anything else in all his life of struggle, could not stop crying now. Four days he’d wept, once he’d ceased shouting, ceased searching. He thought it would be different if he could see her body. That whoever had found her had not done enough to wake her up. But her body had been buried secretly, beyond the sanctums of any temple, in unblessed ground, and no amount of yelling or drawn steel could get anyone to show him where she lay. For suicide was the ultimate sin, against gods and men. The cults that promoted it, which were all thought to have been suppressed long before, had been persecuted, their leaders slain. Somehow, they always sprang up again. And his Lara had listened to their call, as only the desperate did.