The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle
Page 81
Artemi scanned the other eight men - a pair each for four, further men... Coincidence, perhaps. “The rest of you must find the surviving Kusurus. They are the only men in the world to have gone through Mirel’s tortures and who can still speak of it. They are the only ones who can understand what he is going through. And they are the best ones to verify my identity. I need you to find them.”
Burrus spluttered noisily, “You want us to track down the deadliest men in history,
sneak up on them and bring them back here like tamed animals?”
“I will give you letters for them. They were good friends of mine, each of them, and I have numerous favours owed.” She tore several sheets from the notebook Silar had provided her, and started writing in an ancient form of Dekusan as she spoke. “Burrus and Jhontin, I want you to find Tallyn. He will almost certainly be at Fury Point in Calben. He is tall and dark-skinned like the Calbenis, but with light-brown hair. His sobriquet is Hunter.” She scribbled a little more on the note. And some kisses. Tallyn always liked her kisses.
“Leo and Canis, You must go after Khasha. He tends to linger around beautiful places: waterfalls, spired castles and palaces. Try Southern Falls here first, then The House of Mirrors in Quidarh. He is slight with long, dark hair and tanned skin. He is... The Puzzler, I suppose it translates as. Jegard and Gnops, it’s Romarr for you. He likes warm countries and tough women. Try Rhofin’s capital. We called himHammer. He’s built like a blacksmith, rather hairy and almost as wide as he is tall. She turned to the last two men, one of whom had curiously large eyes for his face. “Helvius and Spong, I want you to try to find Vestuna. He will be the trickiest to locate. He likes to be as far from people as he can possibly place himself. Try the Fordan caves, maybe even the Jarhoan mountains. He is The Silent Knife. His hair looks almost grey, and he is thick-set with skin like Burrus’.” She finished writing her notes to each member of her Kusuru family while the Sunidarans talked
excitedly, and folded each one up in the way The Daisain had taught her. “None of you must speak of my relationship with Morghiad Jade’an. They won’t believe it, and it will certainly lead them into thinking this is some sort of trap. Of course, they will know Mirel is recently dead. If you have not located them within three months, return here to me.” The Kusurus had not been reunited in groups larger than three since the dissolution of their family, and Artemi felt her own excitement grow at the prospect. Such a pity Dorlunh could not join them.
She looked down at the pile of books once the Sunidaran lieutenants had said their goodbyes. Their covers were ancient and gnarled, somehow seeming to signify Dorlunh’s presence. He was with them; he had left
something she could use. She had to return to working on her Blaze powers first though. Artemi needed to be ready and able to defend Calidell in an instant. She had to protect her king from the looming Hirrahan ire.
Grey light - - - - - - - - - --- -- - - - - - - - - --------------------------/// - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------- - - - - - ---- - - - - - - ----------------
- - fire. Acid -------------- ----- ------- ---------------------------------------------------------------========= Light, light, light. Light was there - - // --------- -------------------------------------- - - - - - - - - ----------------------------
- - --------- Blaze stream. Fourteen, at least. Looked like Artemi. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t her. Artemi. Hair like burnished gold and fire. Beautiful. Not
acid. Not her ------------- - - - - -----
---------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - -- - - ------------ - - - - -- - - - - -- - - -
- - - - - - -- -------------------------- - -----
---------- - - - -- - - -- ----- -----
- - - -- -- - - - - -- - - -/// Light was returning. Flashes. Sparks. Eyes were re-growing. Growing.
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Silar had arrived. He smelled of books. Unusual smell for him. The general was doing something suspect.
- - - - - - ----------- - - - -- - - -- - -
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----- Morghiad started singing under his breath. Good sounds. - - - -
- - - - ---- - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------- - - - - ------------------------------------------------------- - - - -- - - - -- - ------ - - - - - --------------------------------------------- - - - - - --- -- - - - - --- - ------- - - - - - - - - - - ------------------- - - - - - ----- - - - - - - - - ------------- -- - - -- - -
------“Sire, you should go and see her. Or listen to her voice. You’d know... I’m sure it’s her. I’m sure of it. She’s harmless now, why
don’t you go to her?”
-------------- That was her plan. Lure them in. Keep himtethered. Not again! She was his prisoner now. And Artemi. Poor Artemi. “She killed her, Silar. Artemi came to help us, and M---- killed her. She does not deserve to be visited. She is nothing. Just acid in flesh. You must not see her again. She’ll wind you into her web.” ----------------------
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- ----- - - -//-light again. Small lightning- - -
- ------------- -- - - -- - - - ------------------- --------.
- Something about Hirrah- - - - ----
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--------- - - - -- - - - - -- - ------ - He had to focus. Calidell needed him now. Cadra had lost a significant proportion of its population. The army was broken and despondent. They were wounded, and they needed to heal quickly. Silar echoed his thoughts, “We have to take a risk. We have to send out as many men as we can spare to recruit new blood.”
Morghiad nodded. “Very well. Is your network still intact?”
“It
is.”
“Then use it to distribute a message. The restoration of stability must be made
known across the country. Order has been restored. All will be well. Cadra is safe to return to.” Morghiad could feel movements in the air. He took it to signify his friend nodding in agreement. It was remarkable how well he could see without eyes, how he could walk through the corridors without feeling the walls. “I want a meeting with the council tomorrow. We need to discuss how much money she spent and what food is available.”
A pause. “Epirrita is dead.”
--- ------ “A shame.” A friend and an expert in his field; men who knew economics as he had were very hard to find. “Have his two assistants attend. And it’s time we had the new uniform introduced. It’s time for a new era in Calidell.”
“As you command.”
“And then we must deal with finding Artemi again. I want her here, Silar. I want her safe.”
The discomfort in Silar’s voice was obvious: “That didn’t work out very well last time. And Toryn-”
“Toryn will help us to find her again. I won’t make the same mistakes with her twice. I can’t.” She’d come back. After all that had happened, she had returned to aid him and died in the attempt. His heart ached for her still.
Silar grunted. “Toryn will not join the hunt until he has seen our prisoner for himself.”
---- “Out ofthe question!” -- - - - - ---// flashes
“You think he won’t know his own daughter? Whom he has raised twice?”
The black river was surging. Which did
he fear more? “She has ways, Silar, wa
ys of
making us blind to what lies before
us.”
“She knows things only Artemi could know.”
Morghiad shook his head vigorously, pushing the blackness down again. “Then she stole her mind, stole her memories.” As she had stolen everything else.
“Is that even possible?”
“A few years ago we thought a quenched wielder could not possibly be restored.”
Silar became silent.
- - - - --------------------------------------------- - - - - - --- -- - - - - --- - ------- - - - - - - - - - - ------------------- - - - - - ----- - - \-/ - - - - - - ------------- -- - - -- - - -------------------- -------- Morghiad stood then. He needed to sing again. And to walk /////////
Closing her eyes once more, she stepped into the depths of her meditation. She was at the edge of the caldera again, back where she’d started. The bodies had changed though, and now Silar lay strewn about the landscape. Artemi quashed her dismay at seeing him dead, took a breath and stepped
forward onto the searing earth.
Hours passed before she reached the pit of lava for the second time, and its orange heat bubbled at her menacingly. She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth as she stepped into it. The agony of it consumed her entire soul. The sickening stench of burning flesh filled her head and the sound of her own screams echoed through her skull. Each step seemed to take an eternity to complete, but she pressed on and through. Through to the core of white-hot light. This was the dying place, the part where one had the heart to walk through or the bile to escape and free oneself of pain. Countless times she had been tempted by alluring and cold death, but she could not choose that path now. Too much depended upon her survival.
Artemi stepped into the shining inferno, feeling it tear at her skin and burn out her eyes. It lasted only a moment, but when she fell out at the other side, she believed her body had aged another ten-thousand years. After the white fury, the rest of the walk was tranquil by comparison, and soon she was scrabbling up the lip at the other side.
She was home. The Blazes called out to her with their gentle rage and kind storms. Artemi reached out to touch their brilliant blue flames and, mirroring her movement, they jumped toward her. Life and ecstasy flooded back into her body, searing away her fresh memories of pain. She revelled in them, cavorted with their beauty and drank their fires as deeply as she could.
The wielder was restored once more.
Silar was watching her when she opened her eyes again - his arms folded and forehead creased. He shook his head at her, but his shoulders relaxed visibly. “Too busy to eat or even open those books then?” he muttered.
Of course, days would have passed while she’d been so deep in reflection. Silar looked to have regained some of his characteristic musculature in the time since his last visit. A spread of stale food lay at the base of her prison’s bars. Clearly whoever had delivered it had thought it wiser not to disturb her.
“This isn’t some sort of hunger protest, is it? Because I don’t think that will work on
him.”
Artemi grinned as warmly as she could and grabbed the nearest piece of hard bread. “No. I just needed to think through a few matters. You look better.” Better than the dead men she’d seen in the caldera.
He nodded. “We need to discuss a few things. Morghiad is through nalka now, and rapidly regaining his grip on political matters. There are certain issues -”
“Nalka?” Artemi’s gut tried to vomit, but it was empty. Of course, she’d known Mirel would have lain with him. She had known. She just hadn’t... thought about it. That woman would pay!
Silar waited for her explosion, but when it did not come, he continued in a softer voice, “He is still confused in mind, but is surprisingly lucid in his dealings with the council. It may be a good sign. It is certainly good for
Calidell. But it is not good for you.”
“How so?”
“His arguments against you are becoming more convincing. And his eyes are, figuratively at least, open to actions I may take to protect you.”
Artemi began pacing the cell. Her legs felt weakened by her lack of movement. “You are the last person he can afford to lose faith in. Perhaps you should not visit me personally.”
Silar guffawed. “He thinks me an idiot, fooled by your deception. But that is not the most pressing concern. He wants to send men looking for you, including your father. I have to prevent it. I have to keep them here, otherwise...
“Have you seen something?”
“A few things, my head is still
somewhat... muddied. But it means directly contravening his orders. Visiting you is one thing, but now I must actively deceive him with others. And he may be watching.”
Artemi sat in the centre of her cell and pondered the situation. This was grave indeed. “What is the best course?”
“I was hoping you might have some ideas. Perhaps I could... be open about it. Prevent them from leaving and tell him about it. But it would damage his hold on power.”
“If you confided in him and his searchers alone... yes, that could work. Or at least it would give him more time to heal while they delay. Then he would have to work to convince you. He would be forced to come here.”
“He should see you,” Silar agreed,
“Though he’ll find it trying. Ugh, it’s so difficult to predict a madman’s actions!” He frowned in introspection.
A sigh escaped from Artemi then. She did not like hearing him being described in that manner, not at all. “It’s the only plan we have then. Have you had any luck with Dorlunh’s books? And why did you pick these ones for me?”
His frown darkened considerably then. “Those ones... jumped out at me. There was something about their placement in the corner of his den. They’d obviously been leafed through on multiple occasions. I think he may have left markers on some of the pages.”
Something clicked in her mind – Silar had left no light for her to read by. “You knew I would get my powers back.”
To say that Silar’s grin was smug would have been a great understatement. “It doesn’t take a seer to know that. Yours is not the air of a woman who would remain devoid of her fires.”
She laughed loudly, happily, and immediately set about lighting the vast tunnel with floating globes of fire.
“Won’t he feel that?”
“Let him come if he does, Silar.”
He grunted in disapproval, but allowed himselfto marvel at the ancient walls and the sheer length of the passageway. Long, pale stalactites descended from the roof and broken brickwork littered the damp floor. Artemi could feel the collapse at the end of the run. She could also sense several weak points in the structure, and one was directly above her head. Had Morghiad known that? “What did you find?”
“There are quite a few that discuss the extinction of The Blazes, the end of the world. That sort of thing. And they frequently make mention of Gialdin, and an accidental death which will cause great pain... and then...” He took an extended breath. “You are The Fireblade, correct?”
An overly dramatic name, but it was better than Ice-kill. “Some have called me that in the past, usually historians who want to sell books with what they believe is an alluring title.”
Silar inclined his head slightly as he regarded her. “You are involved in it somehow. ‘An array of fires; an array of lives. The Fireblade’s array will deliver the end by
accumulation.’”
“You’re sayingI bring about the end of the world?”
“More like something you do in each life. But it is more complicated than that. I think Morghiad is involved somehow.”
So, the destruction of the world would be her fault. And Morghiad would either be her saviour, vanquisher or aid. Whatever his role, Artemi needed to ensure he had his sanity intact when the time came. “It makes no sense... I’m supposed to protect the world, not bring ruin upon it!”
Silar only looked at the ground in
silence.
Perhaps Mirel would be the one to become High Sentinel. Perhaps she had been right to harry Artemi all these years. “Is there
any mention of Mirel, of Ice-kill?”
Silar shrugged. “It’s possible. I don’t know. Will you look at those books for me?”
She agreed, not wanting to touch them now that she knew their probable contents. Instead Artemi changed the subject. “My Sunidaran friend, Arrian, wants to help our king. Will you introduce them for me?”
“Fine, as long as he’s polite about the... eye thing. I heard the others had departed quite rapidly after their meeting with you.” He raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve sent them to find the other Kusurus.” There was no point in hiding it from him. “They know a great many things that can help us.”
Silar’s deep blue eyes widened suddenly. “And you don’t think they’ll try to
assassinate Morghiad for imprisoning you?” “I wrote them a note telling them not
to.” “Well that’s alright then,” he said with disdain. “This had better bloody work!” It
The night had grown cold in the absence of the sun, but not so cold as Selieni’s heart. She had wailed like a baby when Mirel had quenched her, and cried harder still at