Moths to a Flame

by Sarah Ash

  ‘Attack me,’ said Ymarys. He was standing, drawn razhir in hand, waiting.

  ‘Wh–what?’

  ‘Attack me.’

  Lai suddenly came at Ymarys from the side. Ymarys’s blade flicked out, repelled the blow effortlessly; Lai’s wrist was wrenched back with the force of the stroke.

  ‘Again.’

  Lai hung back. His wrist throbbed. He should have known this would not be so easy.

  ‘Again!’

  Lai edged from foot to foot, hoping to trick Ymarys into anticipating a sideways attack. When he moved, he moved forwards, darting in under Ymarys’s guard.

  Shockwaves resonated up his arm as Ymarys’s blade struck his blade aside.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ said Ymarys, smiling, beckoning him towards him. ‘I’m unguarded. Strike now.’

  ‘Uh-uh. It’s a trick.’ Lai circled him warily. Wherever he moved he could sense Ymarys’s eyes tracking him. Damn the man! Was he a sentient? Though even sentients could be misled …

  Slide the blade in. Then retract, thrust to the left—

  The force of the parry caught Lai off-balance; he toppled down onto one knee. Ymarys’s blade-tip nicked his throat; a tiny bubble of bright blood burst on the pierced skin’s surface.

  ‘I – I slipped.’

  ‘No excuses. Slip in the arena – and you die. On your feet! Come at me again.’

  Lai lunged. Ymarys’s blade caught his at the hilt, locked tight. Lai strained to break the lock, leaning towards Ymarys until they were close, so close Lai could feel the warmth of Ymarys’s clove-scented breath on his face.

  Ymarys broke the lock with a sudden, violent twist of the wrist, sending Lai hurtling down onto his back. Before Lai could struggle up again, the blade-point was at his throat.

  ‘Up. Again. Come on!’

  ‘That wasn’t fair—’ Lai could have bitten his tongue. Those foolish, childish words.

  Ymarys put out his left hand to pull Lai to his feet. Lai stared at the outstretched hand and shook his head.

  ‘Another trick.’

  ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Trust you?’ Lai hesitated. Tentatively he took the extended hand and felt himself pulled effortlessly upwards—

  And was sent spinning, powerfully propelled across the floor, tumbling asprawl. Instantly he whipped around in the dust, razhir raised to defend himself as Ymarys bore down on him.

  Glint of grey eyes, merciless now, hard as honed metal.

  Trust you, Maistre Ymarys? I'd as soon trust a coral snake!

  Lai only just parried the thrust before it drove home, battering the blade down with vicious two-handed strokes, each blade-shattering blow a distillation of the bleak, black anger that was gnawing away at his soul.

  Beat him to his knees. Batter the blade from his hand.

  But Ymarys stood firm. Endured the hail of blows, braced, balanced.

  And Lai began to tire.

  ‘Had enough?’ That infuriating mocking quirk in the silvery voice.

  ‘No!’

  The blows became clumsier. The blade had never seemed so heavy. Weighted with lead. Sweat trickled into Lai’s eyes.

  ‘Concede, Dhar.’

  ‘Never. Never!’

  Through the sweat-blur he hazarded a last, desperate thrust.

  Ymarys’s blade flicked deftly beneath his own, twisted, lifted. The razhir corkscrewed out of Lai’s hand and crashed to the floor.

  ‘Damn you. Damn you. Damn you.’ Lai sank to his knees in the dust, nursing his wrist. He was gasping for breath, angry, sobbing breaths that made his whole body shudder.

  ‘You – you – tricked me. Every – time—’

  Something soft thudded onto his bowed head. He flinched instinctively. Then realised what it was. A towel. He wiped his hot face, his sticky palms, his neck.

  ‘You’re learning.’ Ymarys took a stoup-full of water from the drinking-barrel and drank. He dipped it again and offered it to Lai. Lai looked at it suspiciously.

  ‘It’s not poisoned.’

  As Lai took the stoup from him, he noticed the dark stains soaking the back of Ymarys’s loose linen shirt, the damp strands of hair plastered to his forehead. So the Razhirrakh was human, after all. If nothing else – he had made him sweat.

  Lai drank a mouthful or two from the stoup, then poured the rest over his head, feeling the cool water trickle down his face, his closed lids, like monsoon rains.

  ‘He has potential, Ymarys,’ came a soft voice from the shadows.

  Lai choked and swivelled round, wiping the trickling water from his face.

  A man was walking towards them from the gloom veiling the far steps where observers sometimes sat to watch the practice bouts. Lai caught a glint of green eyes before Ymarys’s hand settled on his shoulder, pushing him down to his knees.

  ‘The Arkhan!’ whispered Ymarys.

  ‘This one interests me,’ Melmeth said as he walked past, his heavy robes of scented jade brocade whispering over the boards. ‘Tell Orthandor to bring him to my chambers tonight.’

  Lai tremblingly raised his head. Chill light flooded the armoury from the open doors. They were alone.

  ‘That was the Arkhan?’

  ‘Melmeth himself.’ Ymarys bent to pick up a towel, slinging it around his neck, concealing his face from Lai as he began to wipe his forehead. ‘Myn-Dhiel is honeycombed with subterranean passages; he makes use of them to observe his courtiers. He takes particular interest in the training of his bladesmen for the arena. Last year Memizhon lost to the Tarkhas Zhudiciar. The Arkhan doesn’t like to lose.’

  Ymarys’s voice was level but Lai could sense resentment simmering beneath the casual words, acrid as smoke.

  Last year Memizhon lost. The implication was clear. Ymarys, the Arkhan’s champion, had been beaten – and been lucky to come away from the arena with his life. And now the Arkhan was nurturing new talent, unwilling to risk another defeat. And that new talent … was his.

  ‘You’re late for Jhered-nai. Hurry!’

  They were potential rivals now. No one had spoken the words aloud but the Arkhan’s command had made it clear.

  Lai grabbed his jacket; in the open doorway white petals began to drift silently down from the leaden skies.

  ‘Maistre Ymarys – is that what you call … “snow”?’

  Ymarys turned to look.

  ‘Have you never seen snow before?’

  ‘It’s … beautiful …’

  Lai went out into the courtyard and, raising his face to the sky, let the first icy caress of the snowflakes cool the heat in his burning cheeks. Glancing back, he caught sight of Ymarys standing watching him through the open doorway, the towel still slung carelessly over one shoulder.

  Lai was glad of the warmth of his thick cloak as he followed Orthandor across the snow-slippery courtyard.

  This path leads directly from the barracks into the Palace of Myn-Dhiel. If the Arkhan decides you are suitable to become one of the clan, you will come to know this way so well you could walk it blindfold,’ Orthandor said, leading Lai up a steep winding path dimly lit by flickering lanterns. ‘I’ve been coming this way since Sardion – may his name never be forgotten – chose me to instruct young Melmeth in Jhered-nai. Always had a liking for the lad – he had me promoted to Tarrakh – but I can’t understand what’s happened to him of late … Idling his days away …’

  They emerged under the sheer walls of the citadel and a howling wind slapped them full in the face, wet with stinging sleet.

  ‘Djhë! What a foul night!’ cursed Orthandor.

  They entered beneath a torch-lit archway; two of the Tarkhas Memizhon raised their curve-bladed halberds to let them through.

  ‘Myn-Dhiel,’ Lai whispered as they stamped the snow from their boots. Laili, are you here? Laili?

  There was not even the faintest trace of a response. Mists swirled in his mind, veiling her from his reach.

  Orthandor briskly marched Lai through a maze of chilly corridors where silver
lucernae suspended by chains above their heads swung and creaked eerily in the whispering snowdraught. Occasionally snowlight from a high casement window illumined the dust-grey walls, occasionally a dark-garbed servitor padded silently past, eyes cast respectfully down.

  Lai heard the distant lilt of music, plangent reeds and plucked strings … so faint, so wantonly sweet it could have been an echo from another age … and came at last to a chamber lit by a fire of sweet-smoked apple logs.

  ‘Wait here,’ said Orthandor.

  Lai waited, fidgeting with his belt buckle. In spite of the night’s winter chill, his shirt and jacket seemed suddenly stiflingly hot, he could feel the sticky dampness seeping out, staining his shirt. From somewhere nearby he became aware of a buzz of voices, voices slowly coming nearer—

  ‘This is the lad, zhan,’ came Orthandor’s voice unexpectedly close.

  And as Lai turned, he saw a tapestried curtain drawn aside and Melmeth appeared.

  Lai dropped to his knees.

  ‘Rise,’ said a voice, that same soft, persuasive voice he had first heard in the armoury and Lai, stumbling to his feet, saw in the applefire-glow that Melmeth was smiling at him. Behind him lingered in the shadows a dark-skinned, dark-eyed boy; he was carrying an aludh. Had he been one of the unseen musicians?

  The Arkhan was austerely dressed, his long russet hair tied back; the only ostentation was a solitary ruby glowing on his ring finger.

  ‘So you are Lai Dhar.’

  Such disconcerting eyes, Lai thought, green and yet gold, sunlight behind shifting leaves, not quite human …

  ‘Leave us, Orthandor. Yes, Khaldar, you too.’

  Lai followed Orthandor plaintively with his eyes but the Tarrakh did not once look back. The boy made a deep obeisance as he withdrew; the panelled door clicked discreetly as it closed behind them.

  Melmeth came close, very close to Lai and put his hands on his shoulders. Lai stiffened.

  ‘You must be hot in this cloak,’ Melmeth said, unfastening the clasp and letting it drop to the floor. He slowly walked around Lai, eyeing him up and down. Lai could feel the sweat break out again on his forehead. Where was all this leading?

  ‘Hmm. Good stature, excellent bones … Any potential champion must look a hero to please the crowds. I think you’ll please them well enough.’ He touched Lai’s arm, his thigh, his fingers pressing deep into the flesh, testing the firmness of the muscles. Lai gritted his teeth.

  I belong to this man. I am his brandslave. His property. He could crush me with a word. But I mustn’t let him see I care.

  Melmeth smiled in Lai’s face. Lai noted how white and regular his teeth were, how apple-sweet his breath.

  ‘Extraordinary how alike you both are. You – and Laili.’

  Lai’s head jerked up as if Melmeth had slapped him.

  ‘She means a lot to you, your sister?’

  ‘Where is she!’ Chaotic images tumbled through Lai’s mind; Laili in chains, Laili weeping. Laili alone, bruised and dishevelled—

  ‘You would do anything to free her?’

  ‘If she has been harmed—’ Lai cried.

  ‘Listen to me.’ Melmeth put one hand under Lai’s chin, tipping his face upwards until Lai could not avoid the rapacious glitter of his green-gold eyes. ‘I could destroy you as easily as a child crushes an ant. You are of no importance. No importance whatsoever. And yet now that I have seen you fight, I want you. I want you to fight for the Tarkhas Memizhon on Mithiel’s Day.’

  ‘Tell me what I must do.’

  ‘It’s so simple. Win in the arena and you and Laili will be given your freedom.’

  ‘And if I don’t win—’

  ‘My dear Lai, you still don’t seem to understand. You have been singled out, set apart from the other brandslaves. The training will be punishing – but think of the reward at the end. You could be free. Free to return to Ael Lahi. Of course – if you refuse to continue with the training, you will spend the remaining weeks of winter back in the compound and on Mithiel’s Day, you can hazard your chance with the hack-and-thrust rabble – Laili will stay a slave at Myn-Dhiel—’

  ‘No.’ Lai knew he was out-manoeuvred. He must fight – and kill – to win Laili’s freedom. He must forget that he was ever an adept, that he had once sworn in the Sacred Grove to protect the sanctity of life.

  He dropped to his knees before the Arkhan and in a voice trembling with impotent rage, began to repeat the words that Melmeth dictated.

  ‘I, Lai Dhar, pledge my life to your service, Melmeth of Ar-Khendye, Haute Torellan of Myn-Dhiel, Arkhan of the Seven Cantons.’

  And a smile of ineffable satisfaction spread across Melmeth’s face as he enclosed Lai’s hands, raised up in the gesture of fealty, within his own.

  ‘Now, Lai, you are bound to me and to the House of Memizhon. And as token of my faith in you, you will be lodged in the Tarkhas House with my tarkhastars. But, abuse this privilege – or try to run away – and it will go ill with Laili. Do you understand me?’

  Lai nodded, too terrified to speak.

  ‘I have ears and eyes everywhere. You will be watched. You will be followed. Never forget.’

  As they entered the vaulted hallway which was hung with rich tapestries of faded gold-spun silk, Orthandor put out his hand to hold Lai back.

  The sound of laughter drifted through the hall and from a hidden doorway came a chattering group of young women. The air breathed unexpectedly sweet as a spring meadow with their perfumes.

  ‘Lerillys! Kamilla! Sarina!’ the tallest of the women called sharply. At once the others obediently abandoned their teasing chatter and demurely lowered their eyes, drifting back to her side.

  Orthandor touched his clanmark in salute and nudged Lai to do the same.

  ‘A bitter-cold evening, Orthandor,’ said the lady as she passed. ‘And who is your companion? I do not think I have seen him before.’

  ‘Lai Dhar of Ael Lahi, lady,’ Orthandor said. ‘He is Maistre Ymarys’s new protégé.’

  Lai could not resist risking one glance at the lady’s face. Brown eyes, tawny as amber, gold-flecked, golden-lashed, stared back at him in cool appraisement. Her red-stained lips, over-sensuous, curved in a grave yet knowing smile.

  ‘We do not see many with your unique colour of hair,’ said the lady. ‘And you are from Ael Lahi, Lai Dhar? How … intriguing.’

  And she walked on, her companions hastening after her.

  ‘Who – who was that?’ Lai asked. ‘The golden one. The one you called “lady”?’

  ‘You must surely have heard of her! They call her the Duskstar of Myn-Dhiel. She is the Arkhan’s consort. The Arkhys. Her name is Clodolë.’

  Instead of taking Lai back to the cramped sleeping hall, Orthandor led him to a darkened cell in the Tarkhas House.

  ‘You will sleep here tonight.’ He placed a single candle in the wall-recess. ‘Till the morrow …’ And he closed the door; Lai heard the scrape of the key turning in the lock.

  Lai sank down upon the narrow bed.

  Tired …

  No way out, now. He had pledged his word. If he was to see Laili alive again, he would have to fight for her, fight in the name of the House of Memizhon whose cursed clanmark he bore and would bear to his dying day …

  So tired …

  The snow-speckled draught from the shutterless window made his bones ache with the chill. Child of Ael Lahi, reared in the sun …

  So very tired …

  He stretched out on the bed. For a while he tried to keep awake by watching the slow silent fall of snow past the arrow-slit window but his eyelids drooped lower and lower until …

  Lai, Lai …

  The low sweetness of her voice charmed his heavy lids open. She was standing at the foot of his bed, her face half in shadow as she drew close to the dying candle-flame.

  How – how did you get in here?

  I was drawn to your flame, Lai. The flame burns strongly in you.

  The winter’s night did not ta
rnish the richness of her tawny hair nor the lazy voluptuousness of her bee-brown eyes. She took a step nearer to him and he watched her warily, wondering what her purpose could possibly be.

  I am supposed to pass the night alone …

  She laughed quietly and came nearer still until he could breathe the heady spiced-musk of her perfume.

  You’re over-virtuous, aren’t you, for your nineteen years? Or perhaps merely inexperienced?

  Are you here to test me, lady?

  She laughed again and sat on the bed next to him.

  You bound yourself to the House of Memizhon. Which means you are bound as much to me as to my consort.

  I must be dreaming, Lai said. You are only a part of my dream.

  Tonight, perhaps, but after tomorrow, Lai …

  What do you want of me?

  I want you, Lai. And she leant towards him, one hand on his shoulder, pushing him backwards, her face coming closer, closer to his, her full lips red as crushed mulberries, her soft tongue touching his, touching and teasing until he could resist no longer and kissed her—

  And there came a slight sound, dry, like the incessant rustle of silk. He let her go.

  What’s wrong, Lai?

  His eyes strayed to the dark window-slit behind where the flakes of snow were falling; thicker, whiter, they blew into the cell, eddying around in the whirling wind, flapping horribly towards the candle like moths drawn to a solitary flame—

  ‘Moths …?’

  Totems of the Goddess, their wings glittering with stardust … How had they found their way here from distant Ael Lahi? And why were they silent, making no music but the rustle of their wings, why were they massing above his head—

  ‘NO!’

  He leapt from the bed in terror and found himself suffocating, smothered in a cloud of pallid furry wings. ‘Ugh! Get away – get away—’

  He tried to beat them off with his hands but dazzled by the bright flame, they blundered into his face, his eyes, his hair, smearing him with their dust, the deathdry powder clogging his nostrils, his mouth, his throat, choking him, achhh, choking him—

  Lai woke with a shout of fear, sitting up in the darkness, hands flailing wildly about him. He was alone. The candleflame was extinguished, the snow still fell silently beyond the cold cell but the winterblack of the sky was slowly lightening.