by Sarah Ash
‘Lai.’
‘I’ve nothing more to say …’ The words came out clumsily, almost drunkenly; his mouth seemed swollen out of shape.
‘Look at me, Lai.’
‘I had no – accomplices.’ Such an effort to get the words out. ‘I was alone. And now I’m tired. So very tired.’
‘Please, Lai.’
Please? His drooping eyelids opened again. She had said please?
‘Keep looking at me.’
She lifted her silvergauze veil, slowly revealing her face. Now he saw what she had been concealing from him – and from the rest of Myn-Dhiel.
Her tawny brows had vanished and in their place sprouted slender wisps as fine as the pale hair that cascaded about her shoulders, spidersilk strands that were whiter than moonlight. Huge, dark-slanted eyes stared at him from a bone-white face as though through a forest of silver-frosted fronds.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Say it. I’m hideous.’
‘No,’ he said, still gazing at her. ‘Not hideous.’
‘I’m a freak. A monster.’
She came closer now, bending over him, her Changed face floating above his, a moon illuminating the darkness.
‘Look more closely, Lai.’
He looked directly into her eyes.
‘Why don’t you turn away? Why don’t you recoil from me like all the others?’
‘Because … I find you strangely –beautiful.’
‘You’re lying. Lying to save your skin. You think I’m grotesque.’
‘I’m too tired to lie. I only say what I see …’
The wailing – thin and desolate – came from behind the nailed-up shutters of a silk merchant’s house. Azhrel pushed the door; the lock was broken and it swung slowly inwards. A miasmic stench of decay enveloped him; he took out his kerchief and clapped it over his nose.
The wailing stopped.
‘Anyone there?’
Thieves had already been in and stripped the place; the furniture, the hangings had gone, even the lucernae had been tugged from the ceiling by their chains, leaving gaping holes in the plaster.
He looked into the downstairs room: in the checkered light filtering in from the shuttered window he saw the body of a woman sprawled on the floor, head-down. Even the balsam-impregnated kerchief could not block out the all-pervading smell of death.
The wailing began again – but softer, weaker this time.
He ventured up the stairs; a covering of moth carcases muted his footsteps. On the first floor landing he stopped, blinking back tears. Children lay dead; two dark-haired boys and a little girl of no more than four or five years …
Looking upwards he saw newly hatched moths clinging to the ceiling, clustering in the corners of the room; the walls seemed papered with new-drying moth-wings.
A stir of movement in the far corner caught his eye. He had not seen the crib till then. He hurried across – and saw cowering inside a thin, emaciated child, a babe who stared at him with dark, terrified eyes.
‘Don’t be afraid.’ He gently lifted the child; she was soaked in filthy rags, half-starved, a featherweight in his arms. How long had she been left there alone, untended, whilst the rest of her household lay dead?
He stared up at the quivering whitewings – then down at the dark-tousled head drooping against his chest. It took but a few seconds to scoop some of the live moths into his jar. For his purposes, he must keep them alive … even if for just a few days longer.
The child whimpered at the sight of the crawling creatures.
‘Don’t be afraid, sweetheart. I won’t let them harm you. You’re coming home with me to Mirali. She’ll look after you.’
The Grove was lit with shafts of lemon-luminous sun; Lai wandered amongst the blackened stumps, feet scuffing through the thick cinder piles, the charred smell of burned wood in his nostrils.
Far in the mist-drifted distance, a bird called, long and low, a curling note, an unanswered question.
Such desolation. Such emptiness.
A single pearl of water dripped onto his face. He looked upwards.
Rain was falling; cool, spring rain, drop by still drop onto his head, onto the barren, cinder-choked ground. And as it fell, he saw the new green begin to push its way through the ash. Vines uncurled before his eyes, branches put out buds, freshly verdant leaves opened …
And still the rain fell—
Lai opened his eyes to see Clodolë leaning over him. She was silently weeping; tears dripping like spring rain onto his face.
‘Clodolë?’ he said dazedly, floating between dreaming and waking.
‘Stop it,’ she said in a stifled voice. ‘Stop it happening, Lai. You can make it stop.’
‘Stop – what?’ He was still dizzy with sleep, disorientated.
‘This.’ She clutched at her pallid face, her fine white hair. ‘The Changing.’
‘Don’t you realise yet? It’s irreversible. I can do nothing to help you.’
‘Don’t say that, don’t say that!’ She clapped her hands over her ears, rocking her body to and fro in grief. ‘You’re an Aelahim. If anyone can do something, you can. Listen, I will save your sister from the hierophants if only you can stop this happening to me. I promise I will restore her to you, Lai. Please, please help me.’
Lai swallowed. He could lie to her – to save Laili. He could pretend powers he did not possess. But somehow he could not bring himself to lie to her. She was so distressed – so genuinely distressed. He sensed that maybe she was changing in other ways …
The dream image haunted him.
Her tears.
‘Clodolë,’ he said more gently this time. ‘I can do nothing to help you.’
‘Don’t say that, don’t say that!’ She clapped her hands over her ears. ‘You were my last, my only hope.’
‘No one can stop it now. It is irreversible.’
She turned her head away, the fine pale hair shimmering like a silken cloak about her white shoulders; she was weaving her slender fingers agitatedly together, in and out, in and out.
‘You see this Changing as a punishment – but perhaps it is something else.’
‘What else could it possibly be?’
‘A transfiguration …’ he murmured, still wreathed in the mists of his dream. What had it meant? Out of her grief … could come a new beginning? Out of the tears of the Changed would come renewal?
Damp air, chill with the earthy fragrance of autumn rain, penetrated Melmeth’s cell. But a deeper, more pervasive cold chilled his mind as he huddled, wrapped in a blanket, on his bed. The last, lingering effects of the drug had left him weak in body, but his powers of reasoning were returning, his thoughts were less confused. He could distinguish now between reality and boskh-induced hallucination.
What day was it? Lai had told him Laili was to be tried on Sh’amain, the Day of the Dead. And whilst he had been lying here in the grip of the drug, his city had fallen into the hands of fanatics.
The door grated open; he glanced up, half in fear, half in hope of release.
‘I’ve brought your son.’
‘Clodolë – is that you?’ He peered into the shadows. There was a faint brightness there, a glimmer of white in the darkness.
‘Your son, Melmeth.’ Her speech seemed stilted, as though she were having difficulty enunciating the words clearly.
‘My son,’ Melmeth repeated in awe. He lifted his arms – and felt a warm, wriggling bundle placed in them. The bundle gave off a sweet milky smell: a nursery smell. His hand gingerly explored the contours of the baby … The soft, silky down on his head, the button nose … And then a small fist gripped his finger – hard.
‘What a grip!’ he said, unutterably delighted. ‘And I don’t even know your name, little one.’
‘She named him Dion. After your father.’
‘Where is she?’ he said, suddenly sobered. ‘And why have you brought him here now?’
He heard her hesitate.
‘I thought you might like
to be together for a while.’
Clodolë’s fingers brushed his head. The brief touch evoked a pinprickle of white light. Shivering, Melmeth closed his eyes – then opened them again.
For a moment he saw her. Imperfectly, but the essence of vision was there. She seemed to radiate a star-glimmer, ephemeral as evaporating mist.
‘What’s … happened to you, Clodolë? You’re—’
But she had already gone, leaving him alone with his son.
Suddenly he felt a drowning wave of fear for Laili wash over him. Overwhelmed, he hugged the baby to him, murmuring into his soft hair.
‘Oh, Dion, Dion, what a bitter inheritance your father bequeathes you.’
Tread of distant footsteps in the unlit passageway outside Lai’s cell, coming steadily nearer—
They were coming to interrogate him again. Sweet Goddess, he couldn’t take any more; he had come to the end of his endurance …
The footsteps stopped outside his cell door – he held his breath, awaiting the inevitable.
The key clicked and turned in the lock. The door swung slowly open. The footsteps receded down the passageway. Lai waited. No one came in.
It must be a trap. The prisoner was killed as he attempted to escape …
He crawled slowly towards the open door and looked out into the passageway. There was no one there.
He followed the high-walled passageway until it led out into the donjon courtyard; blinking in the daylight, Lai stared around, waiting to be challenged.
No one seemed to notice him. He began to wonder if he had become invisible.
He pulled the cowl down to hide his bruised face and limped across towards the gate. Now, surely, they would stop him.
The tarkhastars on duty hardly glanced at him.
‘Pass, brother.’
The day was drab and a thin, cold wind blew over the city from the east. Lai walked out onto the bridge and crossed the Yssil, waiting all the time for the sudden cries, the rasp of drawn blades, the feet pounding after him. Once he glanced back uneasily over his shoulder – but no one had followed him.
On the quay, he stopped at a pump and, cranking the handle till the water gushed out, tried to wash off the clotted blood from his face, grimacing as he did so. The cold of the pump water was real, at any rate, as was the dull stinging ache of the half-healed lacerations.
What day was it? How long had he been in the donjon? Day had merged into night in an endless ordeal of interrogation. Had they set him free too late to save Laili? Or was there still a chance?
As he raised his wet face, he became aware that there were people about on the quay. People moving, as if with one purpose, venturing out of their boarded-up houses, clutching spice balls stuffed with acrid-scented moth herbs. Everywhere Lai saw pinched faces, hungry faces. Many coughed as they shuffled onwards up the hill.
He drifted in amongst them, letting himself be carried onwards, flotsam on the tide.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
‘Haven’t you heard, brother? They’re trying the witch. The witch who caused the plague.’
It must be Sh’amain. The Day of the Dead.
A long line of hierophants was wending its way towards the arena, chanting, purifying the streets with incense herbs; some whipped themselves in their frenzy with knotted flails until the blood ran down their backs.
Lai bowed his head and followed in their wake, gradually merging in amongst the brotherhood, one dun-coloured robe amongst the many.
Blue, bitter incense fumes wafted into the subterranean laboratory.
Azhrel sniffed the air, frowning. Sh’amain funerary smoke here, beneath the armoury? He had heard the chanting, he had seen the processions of flagellants and penitents, the crowds surging towards the arena. The Tarkhas House was deserted, all the tarkhastars drafted to guard the Arkhys as she made her way to the arena to attend Laili’s trial.
And no word from Lai.
Azhrel forced himself to concentrate on the task in hand; setting up the slow-burning fuse that – if his calculations were correct – would trigger off a series of firedust artifices more complex than any devised by any other Memizhon Artificiar. It was vital to ensure that a suitable time lapse occurred between the moment of fuse-ignition – and the moment of combustion.
His mind wandered again from his final calculations …
Had they caught Lai? Had they slit his throat and thrown his body into one of the plague pits? Or had they handed him over to the Torquistar for interrogation?
The thought nagged like a deep-festering sore. He could not bear to think of it. If they had put Lai to the question, the Torquistar would have tortured the truth from him by now. Everyone broke – sooner or later. Azhrel knew their methods. He had tried to repair the damage inflicted on political prisoners – but all died in agony, broken and mutilated beyond his healing skills.
The smell of incense wafted in again …
He looked up, suddenly uneasy. So little time to finish.
Even if Lai was dead, he must keep his part of their agreement. He must try to save Laili. He could only hope that his artifices would cause enough of a distraction to enable him to get to the girl in the confusion. Orthandor was primed in his part as well. There was just this final length of fuse—
The door was kicked open. The stink of incense billowed in from their Sh’amain lanterns. Suddenly the laboratory was swarming with dun-robed men.
‘Arlan Azhrel!’
Azhrel grabbed his lantern in one hand, the fuses in the other and began to back towards the tunnel door.
One hierophant swept his hand along the rows of glass alembics and pipes, sending them crashing to the floor.
‘The work of Ar’Zhoth! What vile heresy have you been practising here?’
Azhrel fumbled for the catch of the tunnel door; the fuses hampered his shaking fingers. They came towards him, smashing jars of iron filings and saltpetre, lacquered granules and metallic salts until a cloud of dry chymical powders clogged the air.
‘You’ll burn for this!’
‘Be careful – ’ he begged them. Why wouldn’t the damned catch click open?
‘Heretic!’
The door gave way and he half-tumbled into the darkness, kicking the door shut against them. Carefully setting the lantern down, he rolled one of the empty barrels against the door as the hierophants battered their fists against it.
The door timbers juddered; they must have picked up a bench to use as a battering ram. The barrel would not hold for long against such an assault.
And if they caught him – what help would he be to Laili then?
Fingers sweating, he forced the end of one of the fuses into the nearest barrel of firedust. Then, bringing the other end of the fuse to the lantern flame, he waited as the thuds of the ram shook the door timbers, each blow setting his heart thudding in sympathy.
‘Light, curse you, light …’ he muttered.
Why wouldn’t it catch fire? His sweat must have dampened the fuse-cord.
A tiny flame caught – and began to travel slowly along the thick cord.
The timbers splintered and faces appeared behind the broken door. Hands tore at the wood as the hierophants began to clamber through the jagged hole.
‘There he is! Take him!’
Azhrel snatched the lantern and made off into the darkness, offering up a silent prayer as he ran to any god or goddess who happened to be listening.
If his calculations were wrong, they’d all go up together.
‘Help build the pyre, brother.’
A log was thrust into Lai’s arms; staggering under its weight, he carried it across the arena sand to where the other hierophants were stacking logs and branches about a central stake. He handed it to them and watched as the pyre-builders poured oil onto each fresh log. This pyre would flame like a pitch-torch when it was lit.
Shading his eyes, he looked about him, searching for a glimpse of Azhrel’s dark, scarred face.
It was
nearly dark; the dull light of day fast fading to a dismal twilight. Guttering torches illuminated every tier of the arena, fast filling with spectators. Lai could sense the tension in the air; the mood of the crowd was sombre and dangerous.
Individual shouts rang out.
‘Show us the Aelahim woman!’
‘Show us Melmeth’s whore!’
Clodolë and Jhafir entered and took their places on the Arkhan’s dais, the Haute Zhudiciar, in his crimson robes of office, Clodolë in her ivory gown, both figures as stiff and monumental as the effigies in the mausoleum.
The shouts of the crowd suddenly became more frenzied. ‘Witch! Witch!’
A slender figure was being led across the white sand; her russet hair was loose about her shoulders, her feet bare, her coarse prison gown tied about the waist with a length of twine.
The tarkhastars on the lower tiers linked arms, struggling to keep the spectators from bursting into the arena.
Lai felt as though a feversweat had chilled his body; now hot, now cold, he struggled to master his anger. She looked so frail, so defenceless – and yet she bore herself with utter self-composure as if she were oblivious to the shouts and threats of the crowd.
I’m here, Laili. You’re not alone.
A brazen clamour of gongs dinned out, drowning the roars of the crowd.
The High Priest of Mithiel entered the arena. He was robed in his full ceremonial attire and the splendour of his gold-embroidered vermilion and scarlet vestments dazzled the eye. He stopped before Laili.
‘Why have you brought me here?’ Laili fought to keep her voice low and steady, determined not to show them how afraid she was.
‘You are here to answer the charges put to you by the people of Perysse.’
‘Charges?’ Laili said. ‘If this is a trial – then why is there no one here to speak on my behalf?’
Ophar turned away and climbed the stair onto the dais to take his place beside the Arkhys; two other priests, dressed almost as splendidly as he, followed. Gradually, other hierophants filed in, lining the walls until the arena was ringed with dark-robed men. Ophar raised his hand and the tarkhastars stepped back, leaving Laili standing alone, wrists and ankles shackled, before her judges.
