Moths to a Flame

by Sarah Ash

  ‘And the brotherhood of Mithiel?’ Lai cried. ‘In their eyes you are still a witch!’

  ‘You did not see what happened in the arena, then?’ Jhafir could not suppress a shudder. ‘After Ophar went to the flames, many of his brotherhood followed him, crying, “One with the Flame.” Those that survived wander around the ruins like lost souls now that their leader is dead. They have even let the sacred temple fires burn out. You have little to fear from the brotherhood.’

  ‘When Ophar hid me away in the mausoleum I felt as if I had been buried alive.’ Melmeth was looking in Lai’s direction as he spoke and for one eerie moment Lai felt as if those dulled sightless eyes could see into his soul. ‘And then you came to me, Lai. Perhaps this is a second chance. A rebirth. A new life from the dust of the Memizhon dead.’

  ‘Even though Myn-Dhiel is a shell, the Tarkhas Memizhon ransacked—’

  ‘It’s not going to be easy.’ Melmeth’s mouth curved in a sad smile. ‘These are dangerous times. But I’ve got to help to try to put things to rights. Do you understand me, Lai?’

  Laili went to Melmeth’s side and slipped her hand around his. Together they faced Lai, fingers tightly interlinked.

  ‘If I must die, I had rather die knowing I tried,’ Melmeth said, ‘than run away and have to live with the guilt for the rest of my life.’

  Jhafir gave permission for Lai and Azhrel to set up a makeshift hospice in the ruins of the armoury. The wounded of both clans, Tarkhas and Zhudiciar, Blues and Reds, were lain side by side where once the bladesmen had practised their deadly art in training for the arena.

  Word soon spread of the work of the healing house. The last surviving victims of the plague left their homes, many blind, some shuffling along; others too sick to walk were carried on improvised stretchers, a sorry, straggling procession.

  Lai walked amongst the sick, stopping to touch a forehead here, hold a hand there. He was stricken to the heart by the shrunken, withered limbs he saw, the listless, lacklustre eyes staring at him so imploringly.

  Azhrel drew him to one side. ‘We can’t do this alone, Lai.’ His face was pale, drawn with fatigue. ‘We need Clodolë’s help.’

  ‘She’s terrified to show herself – after what happened in the arena—’

  ‘With so little boskh left now, she’s our only hope. Can’t you persuade her?’

  Lai nodded. ‘I can try. But I make no promises.’

  Laili had left Dion sleeping in Azhrel’s spare room whilst she went to wash his clothes at the well.

  Clodolë heard a sleepy cry. She crept to the door of Laili’s room and looked in. Dion lay in one of Azhrel’s chests; he had kicked himself free of the blanket Laili had wrapped around him. Clodolë glanced over her shoulder – but no one was about. Dion’s face crumpled up, his mouth opened in a loud, desolate wail.

  Hush, now.

  She leaned over and gently touched his cheek with her fingers, fully expecting him to roar even louder as he had done before. But Dion stopped in mid-wail and stared up at her, wide-eyed.

  You remember me now, little one …

  That intense, blue stare was fixed on her. Clodolë stared back, enchanted. He was not frightened of her any more. Or perhaps she was no longer frightened of him—

  ‘Keep away from him!’

  Laili snatched up Dion, clutching him protectively to her.

  ‘How dare you! You’ve no right—’

  I meant no harm.

  Dion began to grizzle.

  ‘No harm? You – who took Dion for yourself, telling the world that he was your son? You – who wanted me burned as a witch?’

  I wanted a child of my own. You can understand that, can you?

  Laili glared at her, evidently unconvinced.

  Clodolë began to drift towards the door.

  I know you can never forgive me. I just wanted … I wanted to say goodbye to him …

  ‘Goodbye? So you’re going?’

  There’s no place for me here …

  She would go to take one last look at the ruins of her palace, to walk in the night gardens one last time. And then she would follow the call of the dark. Never to have to endure the scorn and pity of others again, never to have to see the revulsion in their eyes …

  ‘Clodolë! Clodolë!’ Lai called up the stairs.

  Laili came out of the kitchen, holding Dion in her arms.

  ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘Gone? Where?’

  ‘We – we had words. My fault. I – I couldn’t trust her yet, Lai. Not after what she did to me – and to Dion. I’m sorry.’

  Lai ran out into the lane; there was no sign of her. Had she gone back to Myn-Dhiel? He climbed the hill and wandered through the ruins, calling her name; but if she was there, she did not answer.

  The sun dipped behind the distant hills; he sat down on a marble bench in the neglected gardens and let his head sink into his hands.

  Maybe he had tried to accomplish too much too soon. His dream – the Grove built anew amidst the ruins of the city – she had been a part of it. He knew now he could not achieve the dream without her help. All the other Changed Ones had gone to the fires … only she had survived with her unique gift of healing.

  And she had run away from him.

  The twilit sky was so pale that the first wash of night had stained it purple. A single star rose, a child’s wishing star, duskstar … and beside it, the swelling moon, a crescent of pearl, mark of the Goddess.

  In Ala Sassistri’s grove, the windharps whispered a faint tremor of notes.

  He took Ymarys’s flute from his belt and raised it to his lips, echoing the notes of the windharps … then wreathing a melody around them, translucent as running snowwater, the trickle of melting icicles, a song to the winter moon.

  Lost in the music, it was some while before he became aware he was not alone. She was standing in the shifting shadows of the myrrh trees, listening. He laid down the flute.

  Don’t stop.

  ‘Is this where you’ve been hiding? In the gardens?’

  Where else can I go? If I show my face by day, they’ll only try to destroy me. You should have let me go to the flames. What use am I to anyone now? I’m just a freak, a dumb thing to be pointed at, a monster to frighten children—

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  She shook her head – but he knew she was listening to him.

  ‘You haven’t yet learned how to use your gift; perhaps you are not yet aware of its potential. Trapped in this Changed body, you see only your limitations.’

  My gift?

  ‘Your gift to heal. You healed me. And now there are others who need healing. They need your help, Clodolë.’

  I healed you because I – because I care for you. I don’t know if I can do it again.

  He reached out his hand towards her.

  ‘We can work together.’

  Is that what you really want? The two of us – together?

  ‘Yes.’

  I … I need time …

  ‘Time is running out for the people in the healing house.’ So clumsy! The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them; he could have bitten his tongue. If she were to help them, then she must do so not because he had taken advantage of her vulnerability, not because he had made her feel guilty – but of her own volition.

  I still haven’t come to terms with this … Changing, Lai. I was Arkhys, controlled all the Seven Cantons – and just at that moment when I held all Ar-Khendye in the palm of my hand – I lost it. I lost everything. Sometimes I feel it would be better if I just … faded away …

  ‘Clodolë – wait—’

  She was drawing away from him, blending into the silver-leaved shadows of the myrrh grove.

  Farewell, Lai … A silvered kiss, borne on the nightbreeze.

  ‘I didn’t mean – Clodolë—’

  The moon vanished behind the clouds and the Sassistri’s grove was plunged into sudden darkness.

  The face of the winter moon i
lluminated the healing house, as white as pearlmilk, ancient and enigmatic.

  Lai, keeping the night vigil, tried to keep awake. But his drooping eyelids seemed so heavy he could scarcely keep them open; he had been working since dawn and now …

  As he slept, he dreamed that a veiled woman moved like a moonsilvered spectre amongst the wounded. Her cool touch drew the gnawing pain from burned flesh and broken bones; those who shook with fever were calmed into tranquil sleep.

  By the morning, a transformation had taken place. No miracle cures … but all around Lai saw clear eyes.

  ‘You’re feeling better?’ he asked again and again and each time was rewarded with the affirmation, ‘Much better.’

  And several spoke of vivid dreams in which a dark-eyed healer had visited them, a woman whose skin was paler than the moon.

  Today I was able to assure the Arkhan that all the moonmoths had finally been eradicated and, given that assurance, he has ordered the Haute Zhudiciar to reopen the ports. If I was not strictly truthful, it was only in the interests of scientific research, as I shall now set down…

  Azhrel checked that all the windows and the door were tight shut.

  Then, opening his robe, he took the lid off the glass nectarium and sat down, waiting, pen in hand.

  In the grey dawn, the moonmoths’ glitter had dulled, their wings seemed to drag behind them, leaving a trail of powdery scales. They settled on his skin, soft as the first fall of snow. Azhrel brushed them away again and again until only a few remained, clinging tenaciously on to his flesh.

  Khaldar’s emaciated body, an empty husk, eaten away from the inside …

  Azhrel gazed down at his right arm, his right breast. One … no, two, three, four, five puncture marks, angry and swollen, marring the tawny-smooth skin. No more. And all about him lay dead moths, their papery wings drying in the dawnlight. He began to note down his observations in his journal …

  The secret is to nurture only a few. A very few. Just enough to ensure the survival of the species… and without jeopardising the host’s survival.

  The ache of his swollen arm nagged. The moth-eggs lay deep inside his body, waiting for the moment to hatch …

  They are the seeds of a better world, a world where disease and decay can be controlled.

  But this work cannot be done in Perysse. I have to go to Ael Lahi to consult the remaining adepts of the Grove to fully understand the potential of the Goddess’s gift. And if that means nurturing the moths within my own flesh, I must endure it. If I die, others will learn from my mistakes … but this time the gift will not be needlessly, ignorantly squandered..

  The pen dropped from his hand, leaving a blot on the journal. He lay back drained, exhausted, beached on a bare and empty shore.

  Lai opened the door to Azhrel’s study and then stopped as his feet crunched on the dead moonmoth carcases littering the floor. The nectarium was empty.

  Azhrel lay slumped over his open journal.

  ‘Arlan!’ Lai touched his shoulder. Azhrel winced. ‘The moonmoths—’

  ‘I know, I know.’ As Azhrel tried to push himself up the loose brocade robe gaped open, exposing the dark puncture wounds.

  ‘Those marks.’ Just to look at the punctured flesh, dark-swollen like the bruises left by the kisses of a passionate lover, made Lai’s stomach crawl. ‘You said – you assured the Haute Zhudiciar—’

  ‘So I lied a little. No one’s been harmed. They’re all dead now.’

  ‘Why have you done this to yourself? Why have you let them invade your body, pollute your flesh?’

  ‘Because … because I’m an eccentric scholar whose scientific curiosity outweighs his better judgement.’

  ‘But we agreed to destroy them. We agreed it was the best – the only way.’

  ‘And I wanted to prove a theory. You told me that for years without number the adepts on Ael Lahi have been nurturing these moonmoths. I think I may have discovered how: selective hosting.’

  ‘But this – this hosting.’ Lai struck the open page of Azhrel’s journal with his hand. ‘You’re carrying the eggs of these parasites in your own body. No one has done this – and lived. You’re like to die when they hatch—’

  ‘Dying was not my intention. No; I’m taking them back to Ael Lahi where they belong. And if your adepts will accept me into their Sacred Grove, I hope to learn some of their healing skills.’

  ‘Ael Lahi,’ Lai echoed. ‘You’re going to Ael Lahi.’

  ‘The El’Jharradh is leaving next week for the Spice Islands. You—’ and Azhrel hesitated. ‘You could come with me.’

  The lure was so strong. To return home at last.

  ‘If only I could,’ Lai said quietly, his voice aching with longing. ‘And – one day I will. But there’s so much to be done here.’

  The troubled sky showed rents and rifts in the louring cloud through which the first light was leaking.

  ‘I understand,’ Azhrel said quietly. His eyes were dark as smoke in the dawnlight and as impenetrable. ‘I understand.’

  The quay had come back to life. Foreign sailors from ships newly arrived in port strolled arm-in-arm with laughing Arkendym girls; children chattered and played, clambering all over the coils of ropes, dogs pranced and barked.

  Barques rocked at anchor on the rivertide, dwarfing the smaller fishing craft, their great striped sails furled.

  Merchants strode along the quay to inspect their cargoes. Bales were unloaded, precious woods, casks …

  A team of workmen were hard at work demolishing the burned-out shell of the Pleasure House of Ysmodai; the giant of a foreman put down his pickaxe to wipe the sweat from his eyes and bellowed out a greeting to Lai.

  ‘A fine morning, Orthandor!’ Lai called back.

  People came running up to touch Lai, to stroke his bright hair. Men whom he had first met lying wounded in the healing house, shook him firmly by the hand, fervently thanking him.

  Lai smiled, laughed with them. But his eyes sought out a gilded barque; the El’Jharradh, Azhrel had said she was called, Swift Hunter, her figurehead a scarlet hawk—

  She was already pulling away from the quay! Lai ran to the edge.

  A sombre-robed figure stood at the rail, the wind tousling his glossy black hair.

  ‘Arlan!’ Lai cried. ‘Why didn’t you wait to say goodbye?’

  ‘Better – this way—’ Arlan’s voice carried to him faintly on the river breeze.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘One day I’ll …’ But the wind caught his last words and carried them away. Lai was left alone on the quay, watching until the El’Jharradh dwindled to a shadow on the horizon.

  Lai rose through waves of ultramarine, translucent waters, blue as the night sky, drifting to the surface of sleep. Someone was gently stroking his forehead, his hair, his head was pillowed on a soft lap.

  ‘Mmm … that’s good …’

  Lai’s eyes opened to see two slanted, moondark eyes looking down into his, framed by a veil of translucent hair. A face from beyond the sea of dreams. The face of a wraith, hauntingly, weirdly beautiful.

  ‘Clodolë?’ he whispered.

  Her lips brushed his cheek. He could hear the lapping of dark waters … and as if from very far away, he heard her speaking to him.

  What I said to you in the grove … it wasn’t wholly true. I thought I had everything as Arkhys, but it was all empty, meaningless … you weren’t there beside me …

  The dark pool drew them down, they were drowning in its moonlit waters, drowning deep in each other …

  No need for words now. They understood each other perfectly.

  ENVOI

  The morning was misty, clear skies and pale water shimmering beneath a heat haze.

  Dr Arlan Azhrel leaned over the rail, straining his eyes for a first glimpse of the island.

  Wreathing mists began to melt in the sun’s heat, parting veils, revealing the secret verdant island they had been shielding. Azhrel’s heart danced like the gilded l
ight on the water.

  Ael Lahi. White Island.

  ‘I’ve done as you wished, Lai,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve brought them home.’