Smoke in the Glass

by Chris Humphreys

  ‘You’re fast with artillery, Gandalos. Which I think you’ll need to be again.’ Ferros was peering ahead. ‘The other man rides like a sack of turnips.’

  He did, his legs flapping to either side. Smoke was not waiting for him, though, already ten lengths ahead. But their lead was enough that even the bad rider had reached the sheer rock wall of the mountain before the troop had got within five hundred paces of him.

  ‘Trapped ’em now,’ cried Gandalos, leaning his head down beside his horse’s neck.

  ‘No,’ called Roxanna, on Ferros’s other side.

  He glanced at her, then looked back. The horses remained before the rock face. The men had vanished.

  The answer was clear when they rode up – there was a small and jagged entrance to a cave. Ferros was off in a moment, thrusting his head into the dark. He couldn’t see far but he could hear – the sound of scrambling men. He turned back. ‘Ten men to stay here with you, Gandalos. Ten with us.’

  ‘No, sir. With respect, this time I am coming with you.’

  There was something in the way the young officer said it that made Ferros want him along. He nodded. ‘Torches,’ he called, and five of the pitch-tipped staves were brought forward, and strike lights used to set them swiftly ablaze. He grabbed one, Roxanna another, Gandalos a third, two soldiers the others. They went to the rear, Ferros to the front and he led them into the dark.

  For the first dozen paces the passage was little more than the width of his body, the roof just above his head. Then it grew larger, and he was able to raise the torch nearly to his arm’s length. The ground they walked on was sandy, almost smooth – and climbed, steadily at first, then suddenly and sharply. The climb didn’t take long. There was an overhang to duck under – and they entered a cavern with glistening, encrusted columns rising as if supporting the roof on a place of worship, their torchlight lost in shadows above. It was wider for a while too, though they swiftly reached another narrowing – an archway that looked as though tools as well as nature had formed it. Ferros paused, ran his fingers along one smoothed section, grabbed Roxanna’s arm as she tried to hurry past. ‘So you know him,’ he asked softly. ‘This immortal?’

  ‘I have known him all my life.’ She stopped his next question, speaking fast. ‘And catching him is more important than telling you about him now. Because listen. Listen!’

  Ferros obeyed – and heard, over the sounds of feet slapping on stone, a steady clink, clink, clink. Not just one tool. Many.

  Roxanna shook off his arm, plunged ahead. Ferros now followed, Gandalos a pace to his rear, his soldiers behind them.

  The next passage was wider again, its floor smoother. Roxanna was running, her torch a stream of flame behind her. So Ferros ran too, as did the others. Over their breaths he heard more – the men ahead. They were nearer, tiring perhaps. He sped up, till he was shoulder to shoulder with Roxanna.

  They entered another cave – much larger even than the one before. And they could tell that, see more of it, because this cave had gated lanterns hung from clefts on the natural stone columns. The men they chased were halfway to another entrance – an easy javelin’s throw. But both men were flagging and Roxanna wanted them alive.

  That was the moment the immortal ahead began to scream. ‘To me! Arms! Arms! To me!’

  Summoned, a dozen armed men appeared in the doorway.

  Their quarry stumbled past the soldiers. So there could be no hesitation. ‘Corinthium!’ Ferros cried, drawing his sword.

  They crashed into men barely drawn themselves. There could be no waiting, only fast killing. Ferros thrust his flaming torch into one face, stabbed swift and sure into another’s chest. He felt a blade cutting for his side, swivelled to parry it – but another parried it first, and finished off the man who’d made the cut.

  ‘Obliged,’ Ferros said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Gandalos replied.

  Men shouted, men killed, men died. Ferros swept his torch around, seeking danger; saw, on the floor, thirteen dead bodies – soldiers wearing a type of armour he’d never seen. Only one was from Corinthium, though another was failing to stem blood flowing from a gashed arm.

  He sought her, found her – Roxanna, blood on her blade and her torch already thrust into the entrance to the next cave. ‘Come on!’ she yelled, and Ferros was behind her in a moment, and following her through.

  And stopping, as suddenly as she did. They lowered their torches to the ground, had no need of them in a world so bright. They both swayed, clutched each other, needing to steady themselves – for they were high up in this new world, on a ledge that overlooked it. To their left, was a wide stone stairway. Their quarry was stumbling down it. Ferros did not take a step, however, nor reach for a javelin. He was too stunned.

  This cave was huge – so tall that the roof was lost to shadow, so wide and deep that a small army could fit within it. As part of an army had. Scores of half-naked men stood by a ramp that was being built on the staircase approach – frozen now as they stared up. Tall men clothed in cloaks and wearing boots, with long topknots of hair, stood among them, holding whips. Beyond them, there were carts filled with dug stone, more half-clad men in traces. Spread out across the area behind them, wider than the wide cavalry ground he’d trained on at Balbek, warriors stood by horses.

  Hundreds of them. Everyone staring up. Everyone immobile. Everyone silent. Until one voice spoke in a language he did not know, with a command he recognised.

  ‘Seize them,’ someone said, must have said, and men drew long curved swords and began running up the stairs.

  ‘Back!’ shouted Ferros. But Roxanna hesitated, still staring down. Ferros looked and saw what she looked at – the man called Smoke come to a halt at last, staring back … at her. Ferros saw their quarry smile, lips parting over those black teeth, before he grabbed her arm and, dragging her back through the gap, began to run.

  Pursuers had become the pursued.

  Yet even as he ran, as he leapt the bodies of the men they’d killed, Ferros was thinking like a soldier. He knew what he’d just seen – an invasion force. But however alien the warriors, he also recognised cavalrymen when he saw them. He was one himself and he would no more go to war without his horse than he would without his sword. It was unthinkable. So he knew that they were widening these tunnels to bring a horse army through them. Judging by the numbers of half-clad men who had to be doing the digging, they were not many days from being able to do so.

  By the time they entered the last cave, the one before they’d leave the mountain, he had made up his mind. ‘You three!’ he shouted. ‘Bows at the door.’ Three men ran to obey him. ‘Gandalos? Bring in the ballista. Set it up here.’

  ‘Sir!’ He ran.

  ‘So we fight?’ Roxanna had her sword sheathed and a javelin already in each hand.

  ‘We do not. You have to go.’ Screams came from behind him. His men were firing into the dark. He saw her hesitation. ‘Go, Roxanna! Take five men. Only you can command the general at Tarfona to bring the garrison here fast. But with fifteen I may be able to hold them here till you do.’

  She looked as if she was going to argue – then nodded. ‘I will go. But this much, Ferros. I ride alone. I need no guard – and you will need all the men you have. If I meet the others who led the Assani away, I’ll send them back too.’

  A cry from behind. One of the empire soldiers staggered back, an arrow in his eye. Galandos ran past them with two men, began to set up the ballista. Ferros nodded. ‘Go then. Return fast.’

  ‘I will.’ She leaned in, and kissed him hard. ‘But hear me – if you are taken, and this Smoke gets you, do not tell him you are an immortal. Do tell him that we are lovers. It will amuse him – and it may save your life.’

  He grabbed her as she turned. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he was my lover once. Also my husband. And before his name was Smoke, it was Makron.’r />
  She turned, was gone. And with Gandalos’s warning cry, he had no time to think, only turn and fight.

  The two men left at the gate had run out of arrows, and blades had driven them back. Six huge men were there, swinging vast double-handed swords. Ferros threw one javelin, Gandalos another, both hit, then both ran forward. Four fought four at the cave entrance.

  Their enemy were hampered by the lack of space, their weapons suited to plain, not cave. Their steel drew sparks as they dragged points across the ceiling, trying for the high cut. So Ferros stepped close and opened a man’s stomach with a slice, Galandos stabbed another through the eye, the other soldiers killed as swiftly and, for a moment, there were just the four of them there, heaving breaths.

  Until another man stepped through the entrance and made it five. He did not have a sword. He had a bow. And it was aimed at Ferros’s chest.

  There was an instant, just a small one, during which Ferros thought he might do something. Knew that the hesitation had probably cost him a life. This one anyway.

  But Gandalos did not hesitate. Just stepped in front of Ferros and took the arrow through his throat.

  ‘No!’ cried Ferros, catching his comrade’s body as he fell, lowering him to the ground, aware of the two other soldiers as they stepped up and killed the bowman. Focused on the light as it left the young man’s eyes.

  Then he heard the voice. Recognised it immediately. Which meant that he must have been struck too, without even feeling it. He was dead, had to be. Because the person who spoke was dead as well.

  ‘Rise, my love. Rise and fight,’ she said.

  He looked up at her. She looked down at him, in the moment before she bent and snatched up Gandalos’s sword. For more of the enemy had burst into the cave and she turned to take them on.

  ‘Lara?’

  Glossary and Places

  Corinthium:

  taka – throwing knife

  Sarphardi – desert peoples, made up of clans

  Saipha, the Horned Moon

  Blue Revlas, the Blue Moon

  Makat – famed for its brothels

  Buzuluk – slave market

  Ganhar – copper mines

  Trachamea – legendary whore with small breasts; patroness of brothels

  Balbek – Ferros’ home town

  Lascartis, Gonarios, Trebans – elite families of the city

  Agueros – Sanctum on the Hill

  glave – short stabbing sword

  Heaven Road – skyway to Agueros

  Aliantha – hard wood/tree from the south

  Ice wine (from Tinderos)

  Valraisos – Lucan’s birthplace

  Cuerdocia – province

  Tawpan – breed of horse

  Temple of the Sun

  Dawn Window in Temple

  Sonovian free verse

  Genian silver

  Simbala – Goddess of birth and death and birth

  Tarfona – capital, province of Cuerdocia

  Assani – Cuerdocian tribe

  Bow of Mavros – arrow artillery

  Cresto – island and port

  Wattenwold – the northern forests

  Wattenwolden – Tribesmen from the north

  Ometepe:

  Palace of Waters

  Toluc – volcano and main city

  osako bird

  heyame – the ball game

  waytana – the sacrifice stone

  paytaza – a healing plant

  azatapi – the blue moon (Revlas in Corinthium)

  marana – the house of Chosen Women

  Bunami – language of most of realm

  Palaga – province in the North

  astami reed – for weaving

  Iztec – rebels’ coastal province

  Rakama – the visitor (literally wave rider)

  Shadow Islands – known for its witches

  Midgarth:

  Tala – Luck’s fortune stones (like runes)

  Telling – a cast of stones for prophecy

  Molnalla – the fire mountain the east

  Galahur – gathering place for the Moot

  Lorken – Southern town

  Sarkon – Eastern star

  Tulami – morning star

  Kroken – Northern town

  Palur – northern forests.

  Dagat – the game, like tafl

  Persoo, Tamauk – West Coast towns

  Algiz – white staff of talking at the Moot

  Four Tribes:

  Sirene – the drug of communication

  Saghaz – Land of Eternal Sorrow

  Saghaz-a – Land of Joy

  Pregor – a feast day

  Maak – a town known for its metal work

  azana-kesh – the one who comes before

  Author’s Note

  Those who have read my author’s notes before will know that I think of each book as a journey. And as the cliché goes – one of course I would never use in any novel but allow here – every journey begins with a single step. Sometimes it’s a flash of wild inspiration – an image on a wall, a person on a movie screen, a fall of light in a forest. Sometimes it’s more prosaic – or even, dare I say, practical.

  ‘Historical fiction is going through a bit of a dip in sales,’ my then new agent, Mike Bryan, said. ‘Ever thought of writing epic fantasy … for adults?’ he added, knowing I’d written some for teenagers.

  ‘Not really,’ I grumbled like a baby who has had his historical fiction soother taken away.

  But I did what I do. I sat down with a new notebook, opened it to a blank page, looked up at the ceiling, looked down and wrote the word ‘immortality’. Then I circled it – and began to free associate around it, each scrawled word sparking the next.

  Monty Python famously did it with:

  ‘Word. Association. Football. Match. Stick. Up. Yours’

  Mine was different. In three minutes my mind map had shot off in all sorts of strange directions. In three hours, I had a five page synopsis.

  The Immortals’ Blood journey had begun.

  It wasn’t all such plain sailing. ‘Just think,’ the aforementioned agent said, ‘with fantasy, there’s no research.’

  Ha!

  When the plot had been fleshed out, I had three worlds to conjure – a Greco-Roman one, a Norse One, an Aztec one. All needed research to provide a base to them. Then there was the other world, Saghaz. Which itself had four very different tribes. So I needed to invent four religions. I tell you, I don’t envy Gods! (Fortunately inspirational fantasy writer Guy Gavriel Kay gave me good advice: ‘Be general on rites and testaments. Not too specific.’) Then there was the whole concept of immortality itself. How it works, what sort of philosophy would underpin those who live an everlasting life, why can’t an immortal be killed? There were two moons – I was going to have four but realized I’d then have to study astrophysics, which is not my natural bent. Throw in climate change plus a 1% vs. 99%, ‘elites controlling the masses’ subplots and … argh! Research!

  As far as I have a philosophy of writing, it is this – borrowed from the King in Alice in Wonderland when she asks how she should tell a story: ‘Begin at the beginning,’ he says, ‘then carry on till you get to the end. Then stop.’ The way I do that is through ‘character in action’. Develop a central character or two in each world, throw loads of obstacles in their way and see how they clamber over them. They tell me who they are – eventually – while telling me the story. Joining all the different strands together is another, later part of the process entirely.

  Along with my ‘journey’ idea, I also feel that in every part of any of my books, almost on any page of them, you can find me: something that’s happened in my life. Something I’ve read, watched. Someone
I’ve met, observed, heard. Or some adventure or accident that’s befallen me. Often forgotten, lodged in some dark brain cavity, dredged up to be squeezed through character and plot to become something hopefully original. (Though when I tell people this theory they have been known to back away slowly. I mean, I assume you have just read this book, since you are reading this note. Would you want to be trapped in a room with me?)

  Some examples:

  When I travelled through Peru thirty-one years ago, one of the facts that lodged was a theory that the famed Nazca lines – a giant zodiac carved in the desert floor by people who lived between 500 BCE and 500 CE – could only be properly viewed from … the sky. And that some materials were found that could have been from hot air balloons. In Peru. Fifteen hundred years or more before the Montgolfier Brothers. Hence, here, Besema’s air globe.

  Or the wild effects of different drugs – (N.B. this could be a reading thing, I make no claims, deny or affirm nothing) – how Lara could be hallucinating on a type of ayahuasca at the cult meeting, while Ferros is simultaneously tripping at a rave. Or how Sirene, the sweet smoke, could be a version of DMT.

  Or … the techniques of biblical slingshot use, learned by me when I played the role of a Jewish Zealot, gifted in the hurling of stone via rope, in NBC’s 1980’s Roman epic Anno Domini.

  Or … I won’t go on. But if something strikes you, feel free to write and ask. I don’t guarantee accurate recall – much is lost in those dark cavities – but I’ll try.

  What especially excites me now is that the journey you’ve just taken with me is only the first of several. Or perhaps part of a much longer one. You see, by the time you read this I’ll be off into the wilderness again. I have some characters already, of course. I promise that I am going to treat them bad and see what stories they tell me next because of it. Yet other, new characters, will also arrive to add their tales. To be filtered through consciousness, memory, impression and emerge as prose. Sigh. I suppose this means there will be even more people backing away from me in small rooms, preparing to flee.

  Hopefully not the following people though.