Smoke in the Glass

by Chris Humphreys

  ‘What did you call this again?’ he asked.

  ‘In our tongue, “Sirene”. In yours, of course, there is no word. Yet.’ The priest pursed his lips. ‘Perhaps the closest you have is … “paradise”.’ He flicked the lid from the vial, and poured, not a single drop, as Luck had done at Askaug, but a spoonful. It hit the glass surface, sizzled, transformed to smoke. He could not hesitate, imitated the priest, leaned in, sucked deep. It was sweet, it was acrid, it was both. He choked, yearned, inhaled again …

  He was no longer outside the globe but within the smoke which swirled faster, faster, coalescing into a column, shapes forming within it – tala, writing like he’d seen scratched on the priest’s table, rivers and mountains carved onto calfskin. Then these dissolved, the smoke cleared … and he was standing on ground that had no colour, no texture, looking up at glass that curved all around him. Looking out at himself, looking in.

  Luck gasped, staggered. Someone put a hand on his shoulder. He glanced at the priest beside him, who was also inside the globe. The hand steadied him, as did the voice. ‘Look,’ the black-eyed man said.

  Luck looked. Everything beyond was now gone – the symbols, the room, their other selves. There was only the curving walls of the globe and people moving upon them. He saw men like those from the cell, with their cropped hair. He saw bigger men with long black hair in topknots, riding huge horses. He saw fair-haired women, drawing tall bows, shooting them. Riders, priests died. Women died too – not just on the land. For he also saw ships that made his own people’s longships look like rowboats. Three-masted, with vast sides. They clashed, drove into each other. One dissolved in flames, sinking into a fiery sea.

  The priest’s voice came. ‘Our land we called Saghaz – in your tongue its name could be two: Land of Eternal Sorrow; or Wilderness of the Four Tribes,’ he said. ‘And wilderness it was, for the four tribes within it, who you see here – the Women Hunters, the Horse Lords, the Seafarers and us, the Warrior Priests – we fought each other, and often amongst ourselves. Peace came sometimes and was broken fast. Those who could fight did, and often died. Those who could not fight died faster. It had continued for ever, and though all knew that it would only end when the last village burned, the last baby died, none would stop.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And then he came.’

  The ship sank in flames, arrows flew, men and women cried out – and then all were gone. Luck was looking at someone’s back – a man, he saw, as the man turned around. Bearded, with long hair that shifted in colour from black to fair. His face changed too. One moment he looked like he could have strolled the streets of Askaug. The next his face was blacker than darkwood. Suddenly the man dissolved into a woman who stood there but a moment, before shifting again into a man.

  ‘Everyone who saw him – saw her, saw them – saw them differently, remembered them differently.’

  ‘There were two? A man and a woman.’

  ‘No.’ The priest sighed. ‘It is difficult in your tongue. They were one.’

  ‘I understand.’ He did. Moving between bodies was something Luck knew about.

  ‘They stayed a year, vanished as suddenly as they had come.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘One hundred years ago.’

  Luck found his voice, a question, as he stared at this man. ‘What was his – their – name?’

  ‘The Four Tribes also named them differently. To the horse lords he was Wind Rider, to the seafarers, the Bringer of Storms, to the women, she was Moonlight Hunter. But we, the warrior priests, gave them the name we all know them as now.’

  ‘And that is?’

  For a moment, the black eyes were hidden as the priest closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they glowed. ‘We named them azana-kesh – the closest in your tongue would be: “The one who comes before”.’

  ‘Before? You mean another came?’

  ‘No. Is yet to come. Is coming.’

  Luck shook his head. ‘I don’t understand. “Is” coming? Is this a difference in our languages? Do you mean a god? A single god comes?’

  ‘I mean the One. The only One.’ The glow in the eyes grew brighter. ‘He comes. She comes. They come.’

  ‘How is that …’

  ‘Wait. Watch. See.’

  The priest swept his hand before him. This azana-kesh vanished – but not before two things tumbled from his – her – hands: a silver-capped vial, and a glass globe. ‘The one who comes before gave us Sirene. It lets us see. See the world, see how we were destroying it with our wars, our hatreds. Peace came with it eventually, a peace that has lasted. Saghaz, the Land of Eternal Sorrows, was changed to Saghaz-a – “Land of Joy”.’ He smiled. ‘And then other visions came from azana-kesh’s gift. Of a world beyond our boundaries, which we could not know existed before. Your world. Other worlds.’ His voice lowered. ‘Terrible worlds.’

  He shot his hand straight up above him. Smoke flowed through the glass again, then vanished to reveal … Midgarth. But Luck’s cry of joy at the sight of home was choked by what he saw. Men clashed, fought with swords and axes, died. Women clutched children and wept. Drunken warriors swayed in mead halls, singing battle songs. It was not his Midgarth, for he was not a warrior. But he recognised the way of his land.

  Then his world was swept away, replaced by another. So different. In a land of such verdant green it hurt his eyes, atop a mountain of fire, a naked man lifted a squirming baby above his head – and threw it into the flaming mud. Luck cried out at this horror only to see it exchanged for another: in a place where stone towers reached to the sky, men and women were flung down, to a mob that screamed for them below.

  The voice came again. ‘The towers are in the city of Corinthium. It is far to the south of us here. The fire mountain is even further to the west, at the centre of a vast island its people call Ometepe. They do not know of us yet – or rather, they are just beginning to. For we are coming. We are going to bring them the peace they need, the peace we have found. We are going to share with them, with you all, azana-kesh’s dream. His last instruction to us. To prepare our world and then your worlds for the coming of the One.’

  Luck found his voice. ‘And you choose to share this dream by sending killers to murder us first?’

  ‘We observed you. We brought someone from each land back here. Learned your languages. With Midgarth, we saw that many there would not be … amenable to messages of peace. Not when their whole reason for being was war. And so we made that choice.’

  Luck grunted. ‘And if we do not wish your peace? If we oppose you?’

  ‘Some will. Some did here. A last war was fought, the most terrible of them all, between those who believed and those who would not see. Before the vision of azana-kesh could be fulfilled here.’ He waved up again, at Midgarth’s rocky shores, the world of towers, the verdant land, his own world, all four blending at their edges with each other on the glass. ‘As here, all who oppose the vision will die. Those who accept us will find peace. Will find what I asked you before if you had ever had: happiness. And the whole world will be saved.’ Luck started to speak, but the priest raised his hand again. ‘Look! One last vision!’

  They were no longer on the ground. But this was not flight as Luck knew it, as he’d lately taken it on raven’s wings. He and the priest soared as themselves towards a midday sun. Stopped suddenly, hovered, and Luck followed the priest’s pointing finger. Saw, in the far north, a vast fleet of those extraordinary ships filling with soldiers, women warriors, black-eyed priests, preparing to sail …

  To Midgarth.

  Yet before he could cry out his warning, he was spun around – and now he saw, far in the south yet with vision that revealed every detail, an army. They were camped on an immense plain, in the lee of mountains every bit as tall as the one which he had just climbed. But these men were not about to climb, as he saw when his vision went closer, deeper, sinking into the ver
y rock, opening into a world where more warriors stood beside horses in a vast cavern, and men laboured in a tunnel, digging into the rock face before them. He saw how the tunnel was nearly through to the other side, a thin wall separating it from another world entirely. The same world, he realised, knew without seeing, where the tall towers stood, though this part was far from them. Even as he watched, he saw riders. Two groups, one in pursuit of the other. The priest was tugging at him again, at his arm, at his mind, but Luck shrugged him off, went closer to the second party.

  They were mounted soldiers. A man rode at their head, a woman close behind him. She was striking, beautiful, like no one he’d ever seen, with black skin and eyes the green of a gemstone. The man was striking too, with the face of a warrior like his own brother Bjorn, yet with something in the blue eyes that reminded him of his other brother, Hovard. An intelligence there. A determination.

  The tug, the voice, was too insistent now. He turned. ‘Come,’ said the priest. ‘We have not got long. And I have saved the best for last.’

  There was only a single ship there, though as big as all the others. Three-masted, it forged north through a violent sea. As with rock before, so with wood now. Luck’s vision bored through the ship walls, into the ship, into a hold, onto a mattress. Two lay upon it – a woman giving suck to a child. Luck only had a moment to glimpse her face – exhausted, frightened. And yet, and yet … there was something of the soldier he’d seen, his determination in her brown eyes. But when she laid the naked child down, Luck saw what he’d seen once before, that first time he’d inhaled the sweet smoke.

  The child was not a boy nor a girl. The child was neither. The child was both.

  The priest’s voice was soft in his ear. ‘He comes. She comes. They come.’

  Sound, vision, scent, touch, taste, everything lost to smoke. He was not in the air, not on the ground. Not in the globe looking out but suddenly back in the cell, flung down upon the floor. The sudden change was too much and Luck rolled over and vomited.

  Once again, he felt the priest’s hand upon his shoulder. ‘It can be hard, the return. You will get used to it.’ He licked his lips. ‘You will wish to get used to it.’

  Turning to the door, he called, ‘Come!’ Immediately, the four men entered. He patted Luck’s shoulder. ‘More questions when you have recovered. When it will also be my turn to ask some of you.’ He turned to the men. ‘Our guest may need help to reach his room, brothers.’

  ‘My prison cell, you mean?’

  Lips parted over black teeth. ‘Oh no, Luck of Askaug. You are not a prisoner but an honoured guest. For why would you leave when I am going to give you – show you – everything you have come to discover?’ He gestured to the globe. ‘Within the smoke and without it.’ He nodded to the men. ‘Help him.’

  The men bent to him. ‘Wait,’ he said, and they paused. ‘I have one question I would like answered now.’

  It had been hard to tell a change of expression in the black eyes. But Luck had found other ways and saw the priest’s jaw set.

  ‘Ask then,’ he replied stiffly.

  ‘Do you have immortals here?’

  Again nothing shifted in the black eyes. The mouth did though, shaping a smile. And when he spoke, the triumph in his voice was undisguised.

  ‘No. We never have. Which means that we needed to find the way for all to live … for ever.’ He nodded, and the men bent again, lifted Luck by limbs he found did not wish to work, carried him from the room to the stairs. Spiralling down they went, then out into the large square courtyard he’d seen before, buildings on four sides towering above him. They crossed, entered one of those. On its first floor, they pushed open a door, which gave onto a small, simple room. A mattress on a frame, furs upon it; a chair and a table with water, fruit, cheese, bread upon that. Logs burned in the hearth.

  They laid him on the bed, left. Their footsteps receded. Luck lay, mastering his heaving stomach. It took a while. The urge to sleep overwhelmed him. He closed his eyes.

  And opened them again. ‘Freya,’ he mumbled. Carefully he swung his legs onto the floor. After a moment he stood, and swayed across to the table. There was a knife on it, for the cutting of apples and cheese. In all his journey, though he’d been tempted, he had not tried to contact her, to use this gift, born of love. Now he knew he must.

  He sat. Laying the blade to the flesh beneath his thumb, he cut. There was a little pain, a little blood before a pathway opened.

  ‘Freya?’ he called, but only in his mind.

  It took a while – and then suddenly she was with him in a thought.

  ‘Luck?’

  There were no more words, as such. Yet visions passed between them. He saw a monstrous man laid low, a brother striving to unite men and gods. Saw Peki Asarko transform into a bird. Then he showed her some of what he’d seen … what had the priest said? ‘Within the smoke and without’? But as he tired, as sleep tugged and images blurred, he focused on the two things that had given him a tiny hope. In his mind’s eye he saw them again – a mother with a baby on an extraordinary ship … and a soldier riding hard towards the mountains, determination in his eyes.

  For some reason he didn’t understand, as Freya faded and he fell face first onto the bed, those twin hopes made him sink into sleep with a smile.

  14

  Smoke in a Cave

  ‘Oh, I can get you to him,’ said the man with the scars across his face. ‘What I cannot promise is that you will ever get away.’

  Ferros studied the man again for a long moment, then looked beyond him. The tavern was of a kind he’d enjoyed in his youth – the filthy rushes on the floor, the walls stained with the hearth smoke of centuries, the strong ales, the greasy food, and the customers who, like the man before him, you would hesitate to follow into a dark alley. In his youth, with Ashtan ever at his side, he’d relished the scent of danger in places like this. But that had been in his home city of Balbek where they knew every tavern, their more dangerous occupants and where the back doors could be found in each of them.

  Here, though, in the city of Tarfona, in the province of Cuerodocia, on the fringes of empire, he was a stranger. Dressed too well for this place. Some men did not meet his gaze when he looked at them now. Some stared at him, hunger in their eyes. Though more of that was directed at the one who sat beside him.

  When Roxanna leaned forward, men’s eyes followed her. She had made no effort to disguise herself, or to minimise her charms. Her leather bodice was open at the chest, loose straps crossed over her breasts. Ferros watched the scarred man’s gaze move off them, as she spoke.

  ‘We will get ourselves away. We only require guidance, and information. Which we will pay for.’

  ‘Yeah, about that.’ The man took a swig from his mug, wiped the beer foam from his mouth. ‘It’s not enough.’

  ‘We agreed—’

  ‘Fuck that!’ The man slammed his mug down. ‘That was before I found out where he is. Where he’s supposed to be, for you never know with Smoke.’ He looked around. ‘Like his name, he vanishes, don’t he?’

  ‘And where is he supposed to be now?’

  ‘There’s one last tribe, the Assani, that hasn’t given him their support. Rumour says that’s where he’ll be, tomorrow night, at some feast they have for one of their fucking gods.’ He turned aside and spat into the rushes. ‘Animals, that tribe. They live close to the mountains, fuck their own horses—’

  ‘Not civilised, like you, eh?’ Roxanna reached and laid her hand on his. ‘We don’t care who they are or what they fuck. We only care that you take us to them, at the price we agreed.’

  The man gave a sudden yelp, jerked his hand back. Ferros saw red slashes on his skin, as Roxanna continued, her voice low. ‘Do not underestimate us, Tarfonan. We work for the Sanctum itself and it has places in this town you could disappear into where your scars would be multiplied tenfold
.’ She leaned back. ‘Or you could take what was agreed, more than you’d make in a year of thievery, and take us to this … messiah.’

  The man sucked at his hand, glaring at her. But Ferros could see his eyes change. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘no need for threats or—’ he waved his hand. ‘I’ll take ya.’ He stood. ‘Main gate, dawn. It’s a long day’s ride, won’t reach it till after sunset. Bring your own food and water. I’m your guide, not your fucking grocer.’ With that he turned and left the tavern.

  ‘Charming man. Will he be there?’

  ‘Yes.’ Roxanna picked up her own mug, sipped, made a face, put it down. ‘He’ll come for the gold.’

  ‘And the chance to double it when he betrays us?’

  ‘Of course. But I doubt he’ll do it until he can show this Smoke what he is doing. Even then, we have ways of dealing with that.’ She turned to him. ‘What else did you find out?’

  They’d separated as soon as their ship had docked after the voyage from Corinthium, which had taken three weeks rather than two because a storm had snapped one of their masts halfway and they’d had to lie in the island port of Cresto while it was repaired.

  He’d gone directly to the barracks and the letter bearing the seal of the Sanctum had seen him taken straight to the local general. ‘At first he was happy to see me. Less so when he realised I brought no reinforcements – and very unhappy when he read the High Council’s command that he must now obey me. I have his detailed reports here.’ He tapped the satchel beside him, then lifted his mug, drank deep. She grimaced, and he smiled. He was more used to poor ale than she was.