Smoke in the Glass

by Chris Humphreys

  ‘And his latest news?’

  ‘All bad.’ Ferros drained the mug, put it down. ‘Every ambush he set, every camp he raided, all failed. Smoke always slipped away, warned in time. But what is worse – not only is this messiah rallying the tribes to his message, most of the native soldiers who come from those tribes have deserted. The general’s forces are largely reduced to his regulars from other parts of the empire. Only one tribe’s warriors still serve in Corinthium’s armies – the Assani, who our guide talked about. The tribe that this Smoke is due to visit and win over next.’

  ‘And that’s why we are here – to make sure that he does not.’ Roxanna reached for her sword belt, unstrapped and lying beside her. ‘This “message” that Smoke carries to the tribes. Did the general say any more of that?’

  ‘Little more than we know already.’ Ferros grasped his own sword. ‘A great storm rises in the east. It will break soon upon the empire and sweep it away. When it does, all peoples will be freed from the tyranny of the Immortals. Freed by “the One”. Though what “one” it is, he is not certain. Some of the reports say it is a child.’

  ‘This “One”,’ she said, standing, strapping on her sword, ‘is who I want to meet.’

  When Ferros followed her across the room, he could feel all those eyes tracking them.

  They left by the back door, and he stopped her halfway down the alley that led to the main street. The alley was roofed, and had two gated lanterns, one back above the tavern’s door, one ahead at its end. The street beyond was less well lit, and a cold rain was falling.

  ‘You said, about our traitorous guide, that there were ways of dealing with him. Care to share them?’

  She was silent for a moment, staring at him. Her voice, when it came, was softer. ‘I need to, Ferros. I have for some time. There is something else about being an immortal, a power within you. In the end, it may be the only thing that can save Corinthium. I did not tell you of it on the voyage here, as you were still in mourning for Lara.’

  Her name, spoken aloud, still cut him. But action, he knew, even if it could never heal him, would at least distract him for a time. ‘Tell me of this power.’

  ‘Not here. At our lodgings. When I—’ The back door of the tavern slammed open and banged on the alley’s wall, interrupting her. He turned – and saw five men step out.

  ‘Quickly,’ he said, taking her arm, pulling towards the main street.

  She did not move. Indeed, she was smiling. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Because, now I think about it, it may be easier simply to show you.’

  ‘Show me what?’ was all he got out, before the five men came. Ferros stepped an arm’s length to the side of Roxanna to give himself room, and put his right hand on his sword’s grip.

  They halted a few paces away. Four of the men were big, with long dark hair and dark skins but with the startling blue eyes of the eastern tribes. They formed a half-circle behind the fifth who was smaller, paler, dressed a little better. A trader, Ferros thought, from elsewhere. One of the ones he’d noticed watching them in the tavern.

  It was this man who spoke, his accent showing his origins on the streets of the capital they’d just journeyed from. ‘We were so sad to see you go, my beauty,’ the man said, staring straight at Roxanna, ignoring Ferros. ‘So early too. How about we take you to a real tavern, where the drink’s not swill, and we can all have some fun?’

  If the man was looking only at her, his followers only stared at Ferros. Each had the same challenge in eyes glazed by beer. They were looking forward to a fight – one especially, the biggest and most scarred of them all. The small man was clearly looking forward to something else, his gaze lodged on the straps across Roxanna’s breasts.

  A fight was the last thing they needed. Five to two was bad odds, even back in the Sarphardi hills. If they could not die, they could still be killed. And they did not have the time required to be reborn. ‘Friends,’ Ferros said, stepping a little before his companion. ‘Let me give you coin for that drink. It’s late for us, though, and we—’

  ‘We’re not your fucking friends, pretty boy.’ The small man’s gaze was all on Ferros now. ‘Though, now I think of it,’ he continued with a grin, ‘we are going to fuck your friend. Good, eh?’

  He said this last while turning to his gang to seek approval for his wit. They gave it in grins and, for a brief moment, all their eyes were on him. A brief moment – which was all that Ferros needed for the third-best option in an alley fight. If you can’t run, and you can’t talk, take out the biggest fucker first.

  He gripped his sword tighter then, sliding the weapon fast from its sheath, drove its fist-sized iron pommel straight up and into the biggest man’s jaw. He crashed back, gone to oblivion. But the three other big men drew their daggers, turned on him, while the smaller man gave a shout of joy and lunged, open-armed, for Roxanna.

  Ferros vaulted the fallen man, ran a few steps to give himself space. He spun, sending steel whistling through the air before the assailants’ faces. They spread as far as the alley allowed. Each now drew swords to add to their daggers. So Ferros reached into his boot and drew his knife from there, making the odds about as even as they were going to get.

  He dropped into guard, sword and dagger parallel and shoved straight out. But his concern was more for Roxanna than himself. He glimpsed her between his opponents. Their leader had locked his arms around her.

  And then she was gone. Not departed. Just suddenly, and completely, not there. The man stumbled forward, shrieked – and then jerked upright. His next shriek was so loud, so high-pitched, so … strange, that his three men half-turned. Ferros knew he should use their distraction, attack, but he was as held as them – by the small man swivelling slowly around in the empty alley, his eyes filled with a weird light. There was also a wild smile on his face. ‘Friends,’ he said and stepped forward.

  Two of his men turned fully to him. The third, who still half-faced Ferros, looked puzzled, his guard lowering, an invitation. But again, even though Ferros knew he could move, should move, he was unable. Too transfixed by the small man, the dagger in his hand, how he used it.

  Two of them fell, dead or dying. The third yelped, turned, ran at Ferros. He was probably trying to flee. But he was armed and swung his sword so Ferros ducked it, stabbed up, putting his dagger blade through the man’s throat. He joined his comrades on the ground.

  There were now just two standing in the alley – Ferros thrust his sword towards the small man, who lowered his dagger. Blood ran from it to the ground. ‘Roxanna!’ Ferros cried. Somehow, he’d lost moments. It happened sometimes in combat, time and perception distorted by fear and blood and killing. She must have fled the alley. She would return.

  ‘Watch this,’ chuckled the man, and laid the blade’s red edge against his own neck.

  ‘Stop …’ Ferros began.

  But the man laughed again – then slashed his own throat. Blood spurted, a long arc of it, as he fell. Yet as he fell, he … split. Or at least that is what Ferros thought he saw – a body dividing into two. Saw now two bodies there. One on the ground, kicking the cobbles as life left him. The other kneeling, then rising before him, alive.

  Roxanna.

  Ferros staggered, till his back was against the alley wall. ‘How?’ he croaked. ‘How?’

  She came to him. ‘The second gift of the immortals,’ she said. ‘I will explain all.’ She put a hand under his arm, lifted him straight, as the tavern door behind him opened and someone began to shout. ‘But not here.’

  He shook his head, sheathed his weapons. She strode away and, with a last glance at the small man, jerking and bleeding out upon the ground, he stumbled after her.

  ‘Are you a witch?’

  Roxanna smiled, and topped up his ale from her jug. Ferros gulped it down. It was the second mug he’d consumed since reaching their room above the tavern, though he had no memory
of the first. ‘Isn’t it interesting,’ she said, ‘how people always choose witchcraft to explain what they cannot understand?’

  ‘Then you are not?’

  ‘No, Ferros. I am an immortal. And you have just witnessed the second gift of immortality. The ability to possess another person.’

  ‘Gift?’ He took a sip, and put the goblet down. He could already feel the strong ale’s effects and his heart had finally slowed. ‘It is a curse.’

  ‘Why? You do not have to use it. Many don’t. But why would you not?’ She pressed a hand into his forearm. ‘To take over another’s life? Not just their body – their memories, their beliefs, their whole mind? To see the world through someone else’s eyes? Experience it through their being for a time?’ She nodded. ‘It is more than a gift. It is a privilege.’

  He took his arm away. ‘For a time?’ he echoed.

  ‘Yes. They will fight for control, even though for them it is as if they sleep. You can stay within a weaker person for perhaps two days. A stronger person for less than one. We leave and they awake, unharmed. After some interesting … dreams.’

  ‘Unharmed?’ Ferros grunted. ‘Like the man in the alley?’

  Roxanna shrugged. ‘That little shit got what he deserved. They all did.’ She topped up his goblet again. ‘You killed at least one, did you not? It is no different.’

  It is, he thought, in ways he couldn’t frame with words. But there was so much more here that he did not understand. ‘But you were gone! Your clothes, your weapons. Everything. And then you came back … with them all.’

  She grinned. ‘Convenient, isn’t it?’ She stopped his next outburst. ‘I do not know the how of it, Ferros. Far wiser minds than mine have struggled to explain how and failed. It simply is. You don’t have to understand it. You just have to use it.’

  A memory came. Of when he was lying in the surgeon’s room back in Balbek, waiting to have the arrow that had killed him removed. When General Olankios, also an immortal, had visited him before he went under the scalpel, he’d hinted of something other to do with immortality. Something that troubled him. Was this it? He swallowed. ‘Why was I not told of this before?’

  ‘You would have been. But your lessons were cut short by necessity. I would have shown you, probably even tonight. Well,’ she smiled. ‘I did.’

  He did not smile. ‘So you can teach me this? Another lesson?’

  ‘There is nothing to learn. All you have to do is choose someone, desire it, and you are gone.’

  ‘That makes no sense.’ Ferros picked up the goblet, then put it down without drinking. ‘I could not do that. Not just by thinking it.’

  ‘You can. You will.’

  ‘I will not.’ He shook his head. ‘People are themselves. They should not be used like … like slaves, for no reason.’

  ‘I agree.’ She took his hand. ‘There was a reason I did that in the alley. To save our lives. There is a reason you will do it too. To save the empire.’

  An empire ruled by people who do that may not be worth saving, he thought. He stared at his hand in hers. This time he did not have the strength to pull away. ‘There is so much I do not understand,’ he murmured.

  ‘Save your questions for another time. For now, all that matters is that it is. And we will use it, as we will use your sword, and your wits, to accomplish what we must here.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘For how else do you think we are going to get close enough to this Smoke to kill him?’

  He went to speak again. But she silenced him by rising, pulling him up with her. He stumbled; the ale, the shocks of the night, weighing on him. ‘Enough,’ she said. ‘It is deep in the night and we rise with the sun. If there is one thing lacking for immortals it is that even we must sleep.’

  On the vessel that brought them they’d had separate, if cramped, cabins. He’d lain in his, mourned Lara, and Roxanna had kept away. In the city they were travelling incognito, as traders, husband and wife. There was one room. One bed.

  She led him to it. He paused, stared down, and she looked at his expression and laughed. ‘No fear, soldier. You sleep. I have the general’s reports to read before I do.’

  He nodded. Relieved. And yet … Since that mad night in the Sanctum, at the festival, the closest they’d come to touch was when she’d had her hands on him at the table. But like him, Roxanna had obviously decided it was best things stayed that way.

  He lay down. She went back, pulled out the papers from his satchel, leaned into the lamplight, began to read. He stripped down to his tunic, climbed under the coarse blankets. For a time he could not sleep, visions of an alley, of the fight there, of the man pulling a dagger across his own throat, prevented him. Then he did, slipping seamlessly from visions to jagged dreams.

  One came and stayed. Memories of Lara, of their last love-making, blending with other times before; dissolving in their turn, as her body dissolved into another, very different one – white blended into dark, small and slim transformed to tall, voluptuous. Then the dream was gone with his tunic, slipped from him as she slipped under the blankets beside him. He murmured ‘No,’ but just once, as a naked Roxanna manoeuvred on top of him, down him, pushing his thighs apart. She took him then, all of him, sudden and deep into her mouth, into her throat, and though he was ready for her from his dream, he cried out. She moved differently then, combinations of tongue and teeth, fingers, the fall of long, black hair, in rhythms he’d never experienced before. She … possessed him. Faster for a time, slower for an age; building, always building to a point that she never quite let him reach.

  Until she did. He shouted again then, his hands gripping her hair, his flesh exploding in her. It lasted long and when it was finally over he lay sprawled, unable to move as she climbed up him and lay on top of him. The room was entirely dark, he could see nothing. Only feel her breath on his face; he tasted it. And then that too was gone.

  Her voice now came again from the far side of the room. ‘That was only another dream. You will wake from it too soon. Sleep till then.’

  So he did.

  It was still mostly night when they assembled at Tarfona’s land gates, but once these were opened, Ferros could see ahead to the jagged ramparts of the eastern mountains, etched by the hidden, rising sun. No man of Corinthium had ever climbed them, though over the centuries many had claimed they had – and brought back tales from the world beyond, of three-headed giants, leopard-faced women, and flying snakes the size of ships. But these were fables for the credulous and for children. The reality that Roxanna and those of the Sanctum spoke of was of a darkness rising there, brought by men. Men who had somehow found a way to climb the unclimbable, though no one had told him how many, or how.

  Men could be fought – and beaten by other men, Ferros thought, turning to look back at his forty soldiers, making their last adjustments to tack and weapons. All of them were Wattenwolden, regulars but from the Wattenwold, the northern forests, though now dressed like those they hunted for this covert mission. They’d cut their hair too, down to the Assani’s single topknot; shaved off their beards. They were bigger than the local tribesmen, however, and would not bear scrutiny for too long. Still, it was the kind of patrol that would ride out every few days all over the fringes of empire, to deal with any mischief, the kind of patrol he’d led so many times into the deserts near Balbek, far to the west. When they’d first assembled, he’d watched their officer, Gandalos, walking up and down the lines of horse, commanding, adjusting, praising. Envied him his tasks, as well as his soldier’s riding tunic and cape, his lance, bow and sword; his simple life, the only one he had ever wanted for himself. But Ferros had other clothes now, the civilian ones of a trader with the tribes, his disguise for this venture. He had another life. Lives, he corrected himself, and looked lastly at the other immortal there.

  Roxanna was dressed much like him, in a merchant’s simple attire: grey tunic and trousers, worn boots, clo
ak and wide-brimmed hat. The three packhorses were loaded with trade goods for the tribes. At least on top. Concealed beneath were more weapons, sheaves of arrows, and the bolts and bars of the powerful artillery weapon, the Bow of Mavros. This threw huge missiles and though it was used more often in sieges, it had been deemed useful for their mission. If subterfuge failed, awe might be required. Though, Ferros thought, scratching at the stubble on his chin, if we get to the point where we need to try and awe someone, we are probably already dead.

  Gandalos approached, a servant behind him collecting the armour the young officer was now pulling off, beneath which he was as disguised as all of them; he’d only worn the uniform for the inspection. Done, he mounted his horse. ‘Ready, sir,’ he called. The officer was of an age with Ferros but had been informed who was in command.

  But is that me or … ? Ferros turned again to meet his fellow immortal’s eye. She’d been gone when he’d awoken. A soldier had come later to fetch him to the gates. They had not spoken since his … dream. She rode up beside him, and he spoke now. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘I am.’

  He turned to the guide. The scarred man’s eyes were glazed from too little, ale-laden, sleep. ‘Which track?’ Ferros asked.

  ‘To the left.’ He grunted. ‘To the left, between those hills, and straight towards the sun.’

  Ferros turned. ‘Let us ride,’ he called softly, and tapped his heels into his horse’s flank.

  Beyond the hills, a vast plain opened before them. Winter rains had soaked the grasslands, turning verdant green to dull grey. In the distance, those mountains. Their crests were even brighter now and, within a few hundred paces of his reaching the plain, the sun rose. Not creeping gently but shooting up like a fiery ball hurled by Mavros, God of both Light and War. For a moment he was dazzled. But clouds loured above the peaks and the sun vanished swiftly into them, turning the world grey again. It wasn’t raining for now, but Ferros could smell the rain to come.