Burning Ashes

by James Bennett

  Clod-footed in this delicate place, he crashed through a briar and into a glade, a storm of dragonflies, bees and small flickering creatures exploding all around him. For a moment, the miasma mingled with the blossoms hanging in the air, forming a figure, pale and tall. Ben caught the hint of long white hair, bony limbs spread in supplication—no, in embrace. As the insects, blossoms and whatever the little winged beings were (he didn’t want to think about it) cleared, he made out the Lady standing a few yards away in the shelter of the trees, a ghost under the boughs. The strange cloud slipped from her, the floating figure drifting apart, evaporating in her arms. Even in the gloom, he noticed her pursed lips, her tilted neck, the echo of some long-ago kiss fading with the vision. When she turned to look at him, her eyes held sadness in their depths, shadows in violet. For a second, she didn’t seem to see him. Then she turned fully, her robes swirling as though underwater, and offered him her usual indecipherable smile.

  “And what of love, Benjurigan?” she asked him. “Will love alone save your world?”

  Ben coughed, ashamed by his intrusion, though he understood that nothing here was happening by chance. If he’d caught this otherworldly queen in some kind of clinch, then it was because she wanted to be caught. He was long past the point of thinking otherwise.

  “I used to think so,” he told her. Then shrugged. “Guess I woke up. Or got old.”

  “You are yet young,” she said. “And you cannot hide the truth from us. You love the humans with a fire as fierce as the one that burns in your belly. But your love stems from more than mere pity. You are bound to them. Part of them.”

  “You make it sound so romantic,” he replied. “Try losing a limb now and then. Then get back to me.”

  “You were born of their dreams, Benjurigan. Yet you refuse to fade from them, when that is the easiest path.”

  “I swore to protect them.”

  Nimue gave a tut. “We both know that the Lore is over. Your continued loyalty is your own affair. Unshaken, even when you have lost everything. Admirable—in its folly, perhaps.”

  “So now you’re my Agony Aunt? My lady, why am I here?”

  The Lady regarded him for a moment, tracing an emotion that he wasn’t sure he felt. Then she held out an arm.

  “Come. Walk with us. Walk with your queen.”

  Ben curled his lip, discomforted. He disliked the fact that she had plucked him here, even out of pain, and that apparently, she could do so whenever she wished. But he wanted answers, more than anything, and who else but the Lady could provide them? Besides, something in her regal gesture and unwavering gaze made her command hard to refuse. Puffing out his cheeks, he lumbered across the space and offered her his elbow. Her arm slipped around his bicep as light and cool as an autumn leaf.

  Arm in arm, she led him down the avenue of trees.

  “You are not alone in your solitude,” she said, her head turned slightly away from him, looking up at the arching branches. Careless of the paradox. “Once, I walked here with my consort, the King of all the Fay. What dreams we conjured in the garden! What golden hopes. Together, we shone our power into the darkness and embarked on the greatest undertaking. The evolution of Man. An Example to lead all into the light.”

  “Yeah. You said.”

  “With magic, with the Old Science, we brought our immortal seeding to your world and deigned to shape human dreams in flesh.”

  Ben took a moment to digest this.

  Then, “Wait a minute. You mean …” He stole a breath, trying to calm his galloping heart. “The Remnants—”

  The Lady pointed into the trees. “Look.”

  He looked. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing, a hint of movement in the shadows under the boughs, the gloom churning like smoke. A rustle of leaves drew his attention to the trees, along with the soft creak of wood, the bark there moving, rippling around the trunks. Squinting, he made out forms in the gloom, moving in the trees, bodies shaped by knot, vine and bole, writhing in moss-clad skin. Drawing to a halt, the Lady in watchful silence beside him, Ben felt colour climb into his cheeks as the coiling figures grew clear.

  Here, a pointed ear. There, a willowy leg. Then a breast, wrinkled and sylvan within the trunk, but bare and human nevertheless, the nipple a rounded bud. The rise and fall of buttocks, thrusting between parted legs, moulded by the starlight falling on a pale, stripped part of the wood. The next moment, he discerned a man’s face, his mouth open in ecstasy. In a shimmer of sap, he caught sight of a shivering branch, tendril-veined, that resembled a phallus as it plunged once again into the riddle, into the seething orgy of bark …

  Reminded of a similar sight in the Fay crypt deep under London, the bacchanalian scene carved in the marble tomb, he looked away, down at his feet. Despite himself, there was an ache in his breast and between his legs, a sudden stab of longing, and he grumbled under his breath.

  Tree porn. Fantastic.

  To the Lady, he said, “If you’re trying to embarrass me …”

  He expected Nimue to laugh in that way of hers, but she didn’t.

  “Come now. You’re far from prudish, surely. Not now. Not after all the—”

  “Look, do we have to talk about this?” he said. “Just get to the point. Immortal seeding. Dreams in flesh. Fancy words, but I get what you’re saying. You’re saying that the Fay … that you …” bumped uglies with the humans, “had relations with the humans.”

  “Are we not flesh, Benjurigan?” the Lady said. “Alas, our godly provenance lingers in spirit alone. Like you, like them, we are corporeal, creatures of blood and bone, albeit infused with magic. Creatures of love and hope. Of desire …”

  “I get the picture. Am I meant to be shocked? Lady, I’m the last person to—”

  He cut himself off, the gist of what she was telling him settling on his shoulders like a stack of bricks. Catching his breath, he released her, stumbling away across the grass, his head and body shaking.

  “No. It can’t be. It’s … it’s outrageous.”

  Now the Lady did laugh, although it was a sad sound, a whisper between the trees.

  “When has the truth ever tasted sweet? You of all creatures must know that.” She stepped toward him, her eyes adding to the weight on him. “Admittedly, our early experiments were … primitive, rudimentary. And did we not feel our own shame, such a sublime race, fallen to rut like beasts in the mud? In time, our quest to shape dreams took on a more scientific aspect. Alembics, potions, that kind of thing. But thus, we made you, Benjurigan. Witch, giant and dragon. We made you all. And when I said you were part of them, I did not lie.”

  “No.”

  “The Remnants are the children of the Fay. But you had earthly parents too.”

  “Shut up. Just … stop talking.”

  “Our endless magic runs in your veins. But your flesh? Your flesh was born solely of their dreams.”

  Somehow, Ben was on his knees, sinking into the turf. Blood pounded in his head, his skull threatening to burst with the knowledge, a thorn of truth that jagged down to his heart. The Lady’s confession resounded in the depths of him, words he couldn’t deny. Because somehow, he’d known this, hadn’t he? He’d known it all along. His empathy with humans, his restlessness with his draconic self. His need to feel close to them, to protect them. His love for Maud. For … Rose. Oh God. Rose. Thought of her almost floored him, the realisation that judgement was beyond him, that in the run of things, he’d committed the same act, echoed the seeding like a mirror of the past …

  He spluttered, choking back a sob. He couldn’t think about that now. Here he was, a Remnant, abandoned by the Fay and denied by humans. An orphan of both worlds. He drew a breath, shuddering, trying to shackle his emotions. To quell the anger bubbling inside him. It wouldn’t serve him here. Gasping, he damped down the fire within, opening himself to the truth. Harsh as it was, the Lady had answered his question. And with the answering, left only one of his own.

  “Why?” he spat, unable to l
ook at her. “Why did you do this?”

  He didn’t hear the Lady approach, her feet a whisper over the grass. But he felt her shadow fall over him, as cold as the darkness above, the deeper darkness that the glow of the palace couldn’t penetrate. Unlike her words, which frosted his heart.

  “Why, to make them believe, of course,” she said. “To make them see that dreams were possible and thereby inspire the Example. Magic, Ben. The power to change worlds. That was the gift we gave them. Human hearts, however, are weak, and belief is a tenuous thing, fleeting like mist at the first shadow of a doubt. You live in that doubt, do you not? Over time, it has become a prison. Your suffocating Pact …” He could sense her shaking her snow-white head. “Once, when the Old Lands were young, belief in magic, in dreams, shone like a beacon in the darkness. Belief fuelled the circles of protection. And the Earth thrived, a golden fruit in the orchard. But belief has withered and died. And so the Earth follows.”

  A worm gnaws at the heart of things …

  He remembered Von Hart’s fear last winter, booming from a maw of ghosts somewhere in this very gulf. Since then, Ben had puzzled over the envoy’s words, wondering if he’d put a name to his own treachery or whether he simply meant the passage of time, the corrosive effect that the Lore—the lie—had had on the Remnants.

  Now the Lady disabused him of the notion. The worm was disbelief. Human disbelief.

  It made sense. A horrible kind of sense. In fact, the Remnants he’d encountered in this shitshow had been telling him all along. He just hadn’t wanted to hear it.

  Here we are: endangered species. Refugees. Fugitives from our own power …

  The Pact is no truce at all, merely a cell where you wait for extinction …

  Your compromise is false. A war of attrition, just as the Curia Occultus intended …

  The magic of the Fay is growing old. The circles of protection are souring … And the stench of their corruption draws the Lurkers to its source.

  A worm gnaws at the heart of things …

  The memory of denial fluttered around his head like ravens in a cavern, arriving too late to warn him. All the same, he had a doubt of his own.

  “That can’t … that can’t be the whole story.”

  “It is not,” Nimue conceded. “Are you prepared to forsake your heart’s desire and hear the bitterest truth?”

  My heart’s desire? For a moment, he thought that the Lady meant Rose. Then he realised she was talking about his faith in humans, his loyalty to the Lore. His need to believe in hope. In something.

  “Do I have any choice?”

  “Not if you wish to endure.”

  Ben growled deep in his throat. “I know this story, sweetheart. I know how it works. You’re about to ask me for something.”

  “Oh, Ben,” she said, and she sounded genuinely moved. “There is always a price.”

  “Name it!” The grass between his knuckles crisped to black in the heat from his throat. She didn’t need to tell him the cost; he had seen Jia Jing pay in full, falling to an endless death. “I want to hear you say please.”

  “Bring us the sword. Bring Caliburn to us. Only with the blade can I reignite the circles and restore your world. Bring us the sword. Then you will have your answer.” He could feel her stiffen at his back, the ice in her voice as she forced out the word. “Please.”

  Why? He had to know why. All the same, the temptation to refuse smouldered in his chest, a hot coal. Sarcasm bubbled behind his teeth, a breath he never got to use, as the Lady spoke again.

  “If you will not do it for your queen, then do it for love.” But there was no kiss this time; her words were plea enough. “Love, Benjurigan. The love with which we shaped you.”

  If he’d wanted the ground to swallow him, because after everything, after all his longing and loss, he was, in some way, part human, then he got his wish. Before he had a chance to pull away, to wrench himself to his feet and confront the Lady, the grass was weaving through his fingers and around his wrists, pulling him towards the ground, an inexorable embrace. Veins popping to burst out of his neck, he let out a protracted growl as the turf sucked him in. Slick green ropes lashed his torso, his legs, binding his struggling form. The trees were singing, singing, joining with the blood in his head, a symphony of unwelcome revelation.

  Then the earth opened under him, a starless void, and closed over his head like a grave.

  SIXTEEN

  Ben awoke, from darkness into light. Out of the fire, he rose, from the dregs of a memory, a great wooden god and billowing smoke. Thorns surrounding him, binding him. A grinning skull, gold-crowned. Then, the flicker of a dream, something about the Lady, souring fruit and a sword … all of it lost as he groaned his way to the surface of consciousness.

  He lay sprawled on his back in a bed. A four-poster by the look of it. The kind of ornately carved berth where he used to tumble damsels back in the day, flitting in through this turret window or that, drunk on mead and about to get drunker. Usually on some baron or other’s prime stock. Welcomed in by one bored lady after another, who tended to have a taste for … well, the exotic. Such things had amused him once, when he was young, self-absorbed and embittered, before the ages turned and showed him that he didn’t have that luxury, not really. And lately, he’d changed. He recognised that now. He wasn’t the same dragon that had set off for Cairo two years ago, looking to save a woman who didn’t need saving. His adventures had shattered his illusions. Many of his enemies were dead. Many of his friends were friends no longer. His world had fallen apart. That was the price of his awakening.

  Still, he lay under an eiderdown quilt with a cloud of pillows propping up his head. It wasn’t much in the way of comfort, considering, but he’d take it. The bed meant that he was alive, and that particular realisation, he knew, would never get old. Sunlight streamed through the arched windows, illuminating the fine tracery and clear panels of glass, falling on his naked and human form.

  How did I get here? The thought was sleepy, confused. He was pretty sure he’d been in dragon form when he’d made his escape from London. Did they winch me into the back of a truck or what? Do I even want to know?

  The room around him brought to mind another house, presently lying in ruins near Hampstead Heath, thanks to the White Dog. This looked like another medieval throwback that a series of architects had put through the wringer of Tudor and Edwardian before ending up with a ramshackle mess, all under a sagging roof. Wooden panels lined the chamber. In one corner, an armchair sat like a portly madam in threadbare green velvet. A shield hung on one wall. A hawk, he noted, on a field of gules. The sight made him feel old.

  Everything in the room smelled of polish and dust, a hint of dried flowers and old embers. And blood, of course. He could see patches of the stuff on his arms and chest, seeping through his bandages as his flesh struggled to heal. Blood had marked the sheets too, dark blossoms staining the linen. But surely, he should’ve healed by now? If it was the next day. If he was breathing, then …

  All Saints’ Day. Must be. Not that I’m gonna thank any myself.

  He tried to sit up and he got his answer. A flash of silver, a faint burst of song in his skull—a phantom melody, he knew, an echo that lingered beyond the instrument on which a Fay hand had strummed it, enduring after the harp’s destruction. A song to circle the globe. Terrific. The tingle of ice around his wrist was enough to make him snarl, his teeth jagging into fangs at the restrictive power of lunewrought.

  “For fuck’s sake—!”

  And someone said, “Please, Mr. Garston. Relax. You’re not in any danger here.”

  “Oh yeah?” Sulkily, Ben pushed himself up on his elbows, wincing at the man who stood at the foot of the bed. “That’ll make a change. Who the fuck are you? And where the fuck is here, exactly?”

  He already had some idea. There were nicer ways to wake up, he thought.

  “I’m Lord Rulf Fitzwarren, Head Patriarch of the Last Pavilion,” the man said, “which is where
you find yourself. A pleasant, but admittedly neglected mansion in the Shropshire marshes. I realise this won’t sound like good news to you.”

  “You realise correct. Now you’re gonna tell me what I’m doing here before I rip this museum apart.”

  The man called Rulf spread his hands as if to show he wasn’t holding a knife.

  “Must we joust with words like this?” he asked. “Perhaps you’ll feel more at ease if I remind you that we could’ve chopped off your head at any point during the night.”

  “You have a funny idea of reassurance, knight. But that isn’t an answer.”

  Lord Rulf nodded, conceding the point. The silver in his beard caught the afternoon sun slanting through the windows, revealing his age despite his steely gaze and solid stance. He was a man edging sixty, Ben reckoned. Distinguished-looking in his smart burgundy suit. And this is hard for him. I can see that. He’s conflicted, deep down. Ben gave an inward grunt. No prizes for guessing why. Rulf’s shoulders, however, revealed the hardened muscles of most trained killers, and coupled with Ben’s location and the manacle around his wrist, he guessed that it probably wasn’t wise to make good on his threat.

  Besides, how much more damage can I do to them? It’s over.

  Further silver tumbled from the patriarch’s head in a loose knot of curls, bound at the base of his neck. Wrinkles lined the edges of his mouth, sanguine and patient through his beard, yet no scars marked his skin. No shiny patches of old burns, which made Ben think that this particular son of House Fitzwarren had never taken up a sword against him, notched and black, at any point in the past. And there was the name, of course. Rulf, not Fulk. Ben wished he could feel relieved. Evidently, the man before him wasn’t a Black Knight, a slayer chosen to take up the family’s singular purpose: to see his head hang on a wall in Whittington Castle, their long-lost noble seat.

  No. He was a lord. A kingpin of slayers. Even better.