Burning Ashes

by James Bennett

“What of love, Lord Blaise?” she asked him. “What of it? It is a memory. An echo swallowed by the deep. We are not what we were and love alone cannot save your world. You were unwise to ever think otherwise. A pale fool who spurned his throne to crawl in the muck and the shit, under the boot of talking apes. Cradling our misbegotten spawn through the ages, thinking to nurse their ragged forms and finding only dust spilling through your fingers. Oh, we have learnt of your efforts, my faithless lord. Compromises and devil’s bargains. Threadbare spells and broken relics. Pacts and promises and lies. And love!” She barked a laugh, quick as a bee sting. “You dare to kneel before us with that word on your lips, when all is air and darkness. Tell us, what has love brought you? Your attempt to fulfil my Troth? A worm gnaws at the heart of things. The worm of disbelief.”

  Ben straightened, breathing hard. It hurt him to hear it, the lesson he’d learnt. To put his finger on the stove of his fears, burnt by the brutal fact of them. The worm, invisible, ravenous, had eaten away at the Old Lands. At the circles of protection. The soul of the earth. The worm wasn’t time, no, though that was part of it. The road along which it crawled, growing fat over the years, the centuries that had thrown up cities and smoke, the Remnants falling into their shadow … Not time, but a loss of faith. The slow poison of doubt, corrupting all. A festering wound that became a scar, old and unremembered. Until truth became myth and myth became lie. A story, a fiction, no more. And over the ages, the magic soured, fed by the drying stream. The dismissal of dreams. The denial of ghosts. The death of fairies. The worm, the destroyer, had a name: human disbelief.

  Von Hart looked up at her and said, “I know.”

  The Lady laughed, devoid of humour or mercy.

  “This audience is at an end,” she said. “And so is this world.”

  With this, the Lady spread her wings. Against the shuddering darkness, her gown whipped up around her limbs, tossed by an inexplicable wind, the dynamism of magic. The fabric stretched and swelled, fluid in the air, fanning out on either side of her. Her pennons made her look like a butterfly, her body small and dark between them. The gap, Ben realised, the broken span, wouldn’t stop a power like hers, now that she was here. And here, he knew, he’d indeed witnessed a chrysalis, bound in illusion, the guise of a lost and beautiful queen. His gorge rose, dread flooding him. He had no desire to see her transformation again, the monstrosity breaking free.

  Nimue took a step, and another, reaching the torn lip of the bridge.

  Von Hart answered her then. He looked up, tears on his cheeks like rivers in snow. As he spoke, symbols dripped from his lips, a vague prism in the air. Ben couldn’t make out his words, the language unknown to him, belonging to another time. Another world. Still, he caught the sense of them, the spell stirring his blood, flickering around the edge of the circle.

  Summer days, gold and endless. Nights where the moon never waned or set. Kisses, soft, in leafy bowers. And castle walls, high and white. Alien hands on pale flesh, shaping, moulding, revelling in the mortal clay. The sensation, brief, of life. And then sadness. Great sadness, carried on the wind. Carried with the scent of blossoms and blood. A song of farewell …

  All these things Von Hart said to her, his scorned and fallen queen. And Ben could see what he was doing, how he was trying to reach her, remind her of a million yesterdays, crushed under the heel of time. For a breathless moment, he thought it might even work. The Lady hesitated on the brink, her head tipped, listening. Light washed around her, spiralling through the murk. Her aura, blue, brightened to silver, throwing off the touch of the ages, the creep of her long decay.

  But then she pursed her lips, a bitter seed. She raised the sword, slashing at the air. With a whine of lunewrought, the symbols scattered, the prism dispelled, the envoy’s words denied. Blue seeped back into her wings, riddling down the gossamer veins, winding around her transfiguring body. With a crack of bone and a surge of flesh, the Lady grew, her legs stretching into slender spines, white, translucent, incorporeal. One questing limb broke from her shoulder, a glistening, quivering sprig, while her torso bubbled and bulged, tearing her gown into shreds. Gasping, Ben watched her abdomen swell. A glassy, striated orb eclipsed the ley behind her, eclipsed the cloud of the oncoming horde. Eyes, eight of them, burst from her skull, a bloom of mushrooms in a murky wood, ballooning to grotesque size. And just as before, dangling from the maw of this arachnid beast, a part of the Lady remained. A bared breast. A violet eye. An arm clutching the sword.

  Wings, skeletal leaves, rustled against the sky. Thrusting her legs against the bridge, the Lady shrieked and took to the air.

  No!

  Without thinking, Ben flung himself forward, launching into his own transformation, unravelling from the ice. Scales broke from his flesh, rippling around his burgeoning bulk. Wings sprang from his shoulders, their leathery span bearing him aloft. Horns popped up along his lengthening spine, a row of caltrops, sixty feet long. His tail whipped out, the arrowhead tip jerking on the end of it, taut with the speed of his passage. Snout extending, he spread his claws as he reached for the Lady, reached for her spectral flesh.

  Too late, he realised his error, the heat of his intervention. Flame blustered from his jaws, illuminating the space between them. But through the inferno she came, too large, too cold for burning. With a cry, her bristling body filled his vision. The Lady smacked into him in mid-air, thunder across the lake. Fangs sinking into flesh, the creature that had once been Nimue bore him down, smashing him into the ice.

  His breath went out of him, a gust of sparks and smoke. The surface of the lake hissed, buckling under the combined weight of dragon and queen, the stymied heat of him. In his ears, a popping sound, joining the Lady’s teeth-jarring scream. Cracks went riddling across the ice, a widening web with him at its heart, the ghost-spider thrashing above him. The sky wheeled, a carousel of emptiness and stars, swallowed by the mouth of the gate. Wider, ever wider … There was no way to shut the breach now. Upside down, wings flailing, Ben bucked and squirmed, tearing at her face, her underbelly. Pearly scraps of ooze and bone scattered all around him, evaporating in mist. It did him no good. A pincer closed around his leg, forcing him against the ground. Then another, and another, his claws trapped, snared by her glut of limbs. With a vice closing around his neck, colder than the wind, he vented a roar. It was quickly silenced, a manus squeezing his throat.

  With fangs, with lunewrought, the Lady tore at him, silver splitting the sky. In his nostrils, the smell of blood, hot and rank, and he knew it was his own. The blade was shredding him, viscera painting the ice. The sword was beyond cold, slicing through scales as if they were paper, bringing pain that he’d never known. Its steely kiss shattered his fury, usurping it with fear. Like twigs, his ribs cracked, giving way under the Lady’s weight, her relentless, vicious assault. In a horrified flash, he grasped what was happening, even as he struggled against her, resisting her with his dwindling strength, pinned against the ground. This wasn’t merely a physical attack, a clash of draconic and spectral brawn. The sword was cutting away at his essence, carrying the Lady’s intent. Here he lay, one of her abandoned children, the spawn of egg upon egg. But his origin, he knew, was entirely down to her, bound long ago in spells. And like a mother chiding a brat, Nimue was taking him to task, reminding him of her authority. How dare he challenge her? Her, Queen of Phantoms. Harvester of Worlds. The Doom of Wizards and Kings!

  Howling, Ben realised that he was shrinking, his mauled body hoarding his heat. But this was no ordinary transformation, the familiar thump of himself coiling back in, the dragon locked in his heart, an ancient, ever-glowing coal. Instead, it was as if thorns snagged at him, his flesh a cloak caught in a briar, the Lady wrenching at his core. In his mind, a cold fire, the ghost-spider searching for him. For the dreams. The hopes. The sentience that held him together.

  An egg abandoned in a deep wood, the shell cracked like stone. Fire and smoke. A girl in a cave. The sound of sobs that he knew as his own. A cool, wh
ite hand on his shoulder, promising him purpose, a reason to go on. A moonlit meadow under the stars. Knights stood around a table, watching him bend with quill in hand …

  With an effort of will, Ben clutched at the threads of his being. He was desperate to save the sense of himself, his inherent magic, from her snapping scrutiny. In this, only his diminishing size helped him, allowing him to slip from the Lady’s claws. Again, her fangs darted down, this time striking the ice. Groaning, he rolled, blood smearing his naked skin, painting the lake. It’s cold. So cold … Hands on his belly, he pressed on his wounds. The deepest of them chugged, red between his fingers. His flesh tingled, his heat uncertain, his healing abilities checked somehow. The gash remained open, wet and raw.

  Not good.

  Shadows fluttered in his skull. Damn. He was losing consciousness. Blearily, from miles away, he could hear the envoy shouting. Words that might mean anything, useless to him now. By degrees, the chill was slipping from him, the storm of violence receding. Leaving him to die.

  The Lady, distracted, shifted her bulk. Then she turned and scuttled away across the ice.

  Grimacing, broken, Ben managed to roll onto his stomach. The blood in his hair crackled, already freezing in the still. He peered across the surface of the lake, seeing Von Hart climbing to his feet, his arms spread in welcome. In the gloom, he looked small, a bony figure in a ridiculous robe. His face, a mask of white, turned to the creature bearing down on him. From the ghost-spider’s maw, the hominid remains of the Lady hung, her arm raising the sword.

  No.

  Across the distance, the envoy extraordinary, King of the Fay, stood in the heart of the circle. Its light was dim now. Doused in darkness. Shrouded by snow. Arms falling to his sides, he simply hung his head. And waited.

  A shadow fell over him, hissing with rage. Despite that, the fairy smiled. A sadness, a surrender on his lips. When he spoke, it was barely a whisper, a sigh stolen by the wind. But Ben heard him clearly enough, a tinkle of bells in his head.

  “I thought that I could save them,” he said.

  Then silver flooded the scene, lunewrought slashing down.

  With a sweep of the sword, Nimue, Our Lady of the Barrows, chopped off the envoy’s head.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Ben was too tired, too cold, to cry out. All he could do was let out a breath, a hollow puff in the still. Fighting the shadows, he closed his eyes, ice crackling down his cheeks.

  Lost. He’s lost.

  The fact slammed into him. For all Von Hart’s cunning, his scheme had failed, his futile endeavour, spanning years. The envoy extraordinary. Lost. His mistake remained just that, one he’d never undo. Conspiracies and spiked armour. Broken harps and shattered glass. What good had it done?

  Ben summed up his despair in a single, remembered name.

  Jia. She died for nothing. Nothing …

  The gate stood open, a black rent between the mountains. It grew wider with every second, a threshold devoured by ghosts. Down its throat, the vanguard came on, rumbling ever closer out of the dark. In a matter of minutes, the Fay would alight, all shining swords, strange engines and ghost-light, on the rotting soil of the Earth.

  And what then? What then? The world was dying, withering on the branch. He tried and failed not to think about its last days. A tyranny of evil, of mad queens and ravenous beasts. Stampeding giants, dragons and war. The gate, he knew, would grow and grow, until it yawned in an endless gulf. Sucking up deserts and seas. Cities and plains. Gulping down Creation. He spared a thought for the people, the humans—his damn family—the ones he had failed to protect. He’d hoped beyond hope to stop all of this, to build a bridge to the future. But even Annis Cade, that bright, bright spark, flickered and waned, extinguished in his thoughts.

  The ice he lay upon, stained a deep red, crawled into his ravaged flesh, his broken bones. The last of his heat was unable to thwart it. The lunewrought blade, Caliburn—Merlin, whatever—had made good on its promise, felling him like a tree. The wound in his guts wasn’t healing, he could tell. Sprawled on the ice, he was bleeding out, as good as a naked man cast adrift on the tundra. Along with the world, he was dying. The last waking dragon, sinking into his final sleep.

  Yes. There was only darkness now. Darkness and death. Welcome death.

  As if to mock him, light filtered through the gloom, stinging his eyes.

  No. Let me rest. Let me go …

  Grudgingly, he squinted through the glare at its source, the Lady in the middle of the circle. The Cardinal Locus. Her legs, eight of them, scuttled like giant pins around the carved heart, her equal number of eyes fixed on its smouldering hub. The circle, it seemed, was responding to her presence, however monstrous and warped. And why wouldn’t it? Ben thought, distantly. Why not? After all, aeons ago, the Fay had been the ones to carve these circles, branding their sigils into the earth, or so the story went. The myths of myths. Lost as the magic. Perhaps the ancient binding remembered her. Remembered the goddess she used to be, even if she’d long since fallen, forgetful in her decline.

  As he thought this, he realised his error. The Lady, clearly, was experiencing some difficulty, skittering around the inner ring. Her abdomen bobbed and bulged, the striations fluid in the light, shafts of blue through her legs. She lowered herself, drool splattering the ice, then straightened, venting a curse. As she turned, Ben made out her fangs, opening and closing, whickering in annoyance. Her skeletal wings flapped uselessly. She didn’t crave the sky, but the ground.

  Dangling from her maw, the rags of her humanoid form, trapped, embedded in spectral bone. Her arm swung, clutching the sword. The bloodied blade flashed with jewels, striving for the ground. At first, Ben wondered, his mind dull, what she wanted with the corpse between her legs. A headless heap of star-spangled silk, pooling with the blood on the ice. He’s gone. And why couldn’t she resume earthly form? Apparently, the changing art had been stripped from her, the Lurker, the rot taking hold. Then, as the circle brightened, the sword dipping towards its core, a residual heat shivered through him, sparking every nerve, bright with the understanding.

  Only with the blade can I reignite the circles and restore your world. Bring us the sword. Then you will have your answer.

  One could never trust the Fay, and in her case, it was no different. Everything she’d told him was a mirror. An inverted prophecy, or a spoiled one, going the same way as the magic. Going to Hell along with everything else.

  Your Troth is tainted. A promise of death. That’s your answer.

  The Lady hadn’t come to restore the circle. She’d come to destroy it.

  In that moment, the truth struck him. Nothing he was seeing here had happened by accident. Von Hart had drawn the Lady to the heart of the circle, the Locus, choosing this remote and frozen place to welcome her return. Perhaps he’d really believed that he could reason with her, remind his queen of love and persuade her to heal the world. Even when the envoy learnt of her decay, he’d pressed on, trying to reach her. What else could he do? He had nothing left … All the same, his blindness had cost him dearly. Cost them all so dearly.

  But Von Hart had forgotten the sword. Neglected it. Caliburn had fallen into Ben’s hands, unlikely, clumsy as they were. And Ben had followed the ravens to the mountain, answering the ancient summons, taking up a task meant for another, meant for the envoy alone. Had that been an accident too?

  You knew all along, didn’t you?

  He remembered the envoy on the desert sands, looking back with a smile over his shoulder. And as for Jia … Catch her. Let me fall. He’d wondered all along why Von Hart had kept him around, tangled up at the edges of his schemes. Blundering, chasing riddles and ghosts, Ben had turned over the cards one by one, their faces spelling catastrophe. And much as the thought rankled him, the envoy had obviously known that one washed-up dragon couldn’t stop him, simply serve as damage limitation. Not that it had exactly worked out …

  And what else? Ben knew he’d never be a hero, no. Not the savi
our that anyone wanted. He’d let too much slip for that, even turned his back on his own kind, choosing survival instead. And Maud. Rose. Jia. You couldn’t save them … He couldn’t deny his part in all this. His long, waking sleep had enabled the destruction. The gate that yawned above, hungry and black. But it struck him that he was here for a reason. The envoy wouldn’t have left anything to chance, particularly the presence of a seven-ton dragon, here at the crux of his plans.

  It’s the sword. He wanted to bargain with the sword.

  This prompted another thought. Another faint shiver of heat.

  Here we stand at the heart of all belief, watching the last hope fade …

  And it was the sword, he saw, not the Lady, that the circle was seeking to answer. As Nimue once again lowered herself, her legs locked, her joints meeting with a glassy click, keeping her belly from the ice. She was an ill-formed thing. A ghost from the dark, never meant for this world. As such, the arm that stretched from her maw couldn’t quite reach the heart of the circle, the tip of the sword a foot or so from it. The circle shone, the light uncertain, responding to lunewrought, eager for connection.

  Yes! All of this, the Example, the war, had started with the damn sword. The blade had been thrust into anvil and stone, waiting to spark a tragic destiny. When Ben’s hand had closed around the hilt, he’d seen it. As he’d seen the sword used like a key, unlocking a mountainside, the chamber deep under Snowdon. In Barcelona, in London, he’d seen how the sword triggered the circles of protection and wondered what it was trying to show him.

  Now he understood.

  With our spells and the hope in our heart, we bound the fate of your world to the blade.

  The Lady, of course, had lost hope long ago, descending into madness. And her spells had soured, infecting all. The Earth. The leys. The Isle of the Apples, wilting in the orchard … Nimue, for all her promise, hadn’t returned to save them at all, to reignite the failing magic. No. She had come to cut the rot from the branch, and for that, she needed the sword. As soon as he thought it, Ben grasped the sense of it, the things he’d seen on his journey—his battle—rising to the surface of his pain. The sword, never one to resist an insult, had told him from the start.