The Key To The Grave (#2 The Price Of Freedom)

by Chris Northern

  What should I do? I almost spoke aloud but something in me baulked at that. Think, I told myself, that is what you should do. In the darkness behind my closed eyelids an uglier darkness settled over me.

  “Go and set fire to something,” I told him. “As many somethings as you can. Leave the rest to me.”

  Burn the place, I thought. Burn it and everyone in it.

  Dubaku didn't answer and after a time I opened my eyes.

  He was close, squatting before me with his feet flat to the ground, his face close, eyes searching my face while his expression revealed nothing. “People will die,” he said without inflection.

  “People die all the time,” I said. “People have already died. Everyone dies. Death is nothing. Set the fires. As many as you can. As big as you can. There will be barns. That straw came from somewhere. Find it. Burn it.”

  “Hathen Elt won't care that people die. He won't care about the fires.”

  “Fire is a threat to everyone. People will act.” I remembered empty buckets littering a street. “He'll have to act as things get worse. Whatever he does will give me an opportunity.”

  “To do what?”

  “Whatever is necessary.”

  He didn't answer. His expression settled slowly into one of deeply troubled melancholy. “Sumto, I don't like this. People will die. There is a difference between killing and murder.”

  “Tell Hathen Elt that.”

  He turned his head and I turned to see what he saw. He was looking at the huddled figures in one corner of the pen. Most of them were women and children, he'd told me. Come the dawn, they would also become Hathen Elt's victims. After a moment he turned back to face me and nodded. “This must end,” he said.

  “I'll end it,” I said.

  He whispered a word I didn't catch. A spirit flickered between us and settled around him, taking him from my sight. I didn't hear him move, but saw footprints appear in the mud as he walked away from me. He would do it. He would set the fires. Sow the seeds of chaos. Tonight Learneth would burn; and there would be an end.

  #

  I watched the line between moonlight and shadow creep slowly toward me as the night wore on. The cold was burrowing into my flesh and bones. My wrist ached deeply and my head pounded. There was nothing I could do without drawing attention to myself. I tensed muscle groups in turn, trying to generate some warmth; my arms and legs were weak and shaky, my guts felt queasy and cold. I was dizzy even though I didn't move. I kept feeling that my body was drifting, floating away from me, then snapping back when I twitched involuntarily. I felt that my body had betrayed me. I had no confidence that I would be able to move with sureness or ability when the time came. I would just have to move slowly and resolutely, I determined. I had no idea what I would do. I had no conception of where I might go. I only knew that whatever happened was better than whatever fate might await me if I did nothing.

  The passage of time dragged and jumped alternately. I listened to the night, trying to hear over the persistent ringing in my ears. Sounds seeped into my awareness but nothing that added to what I knew. The crying of a baby. A broken and fearful voice attempting comfort. Hushed voices in the night. The ringing echo of booted feet on cobbles. I kept my eyes open by force of will alone and tried not to be over-aware of the dizziness and nausea that threatened to overwhelm my senses and rob me of my self-awareness. Movements caught at my attention and sometimes captured it for a moment at a time. The shifting of a body on a bed of straw. The marching of a pair of soldiers across the square. My body trembled and shook uncontrollably and I hoped, knowing it was just an attempt at self-delusion, that it was only the cold of the night effecting me.

  One of the soldiers had gone, I noticed. Time had jumped. Maybe I'd become inattentive or passed out for a moment. I couldn't tell which. I focused on the other, standing to one side of the doorway. He had moved forward to the edge of the portico and stared into the night, spear butt grounded at his side, shield held over his shoulder by a strap. His face lit by moonlight, head tilted back and cocked to one side; he barely seemed curious by what he saw, frowning into the night with an expression of mild irritation. He turned back as his companion emerged from the building, a brief revelation of light from the interior as the door opened and close behind him; they passed a word and resumed their positions either side of the doorway.

  I watched their indifference with curiosity. What had I missed? I looked around the square without moving more than my head, slowly from side to side. I could see nothing new and hear little over the metallic ringing in my ears.

  The shadow moved closer to me, beyond it light gleamed on moist cobbles and on the building opposite, a sharp line of shadow eased down the wall above the soldiers' heads as the moon rose steadily. Resting my head back against the wall, my gaze fell naturally there and I let myself rest. I was thirsty. The flask that Dubaku had given me was still in my hand, held in my lap. I sipped what was left of the cold water it held. My mouth felt odd and the sensation spread to my face as I became aware of it. My whole body, oddly disjointed and vague, not fully mine. I tensed my shoulders and relaxed them. I felt that I could easily take on a half-drowned kitten and win. The thought filled me with a black fury that swept through me and left me dizzy and exhausted. I wondered if I would always feel like this now, if the the damage was permanent. Head wounds, I seemed to recall, could cause all manner of long-term symptoms. The ringing in my ears might continue for the rest of my life. The blurring of my vision might be permanent.

  The soldiers were conferring and I'd almost missed it. Something was happening. I had no idea what. They talked softly and one shrugged, headed back into the building. When he came back he had another spearman in tow, who looked out into the night for a time and then walked back into the building, closing the door behind him.

  Shivering violently, I looked around me, wondering where I was and what I was doing sitting out in the cold night. Then I remembered and moaned softly to myself in horror and fear. I bit my lip, fighting to stop the tears that drizzled from my eyes and dripped onto my arms. Get a grip, I told myself, and tried to focus my eyes. I was looking at my lap, chin resting on my chest. I forced my head up slowly, letting my gaze drift down my legs to my bare feet. Then away, vision clearing and blurring as my gaze drifted over a group of men back-lit by torches. My scattered attention passed over them as I forced my aching neck to straighten and rested the back of my head against the wall. I became aware of an odd orange flickering at the top of the facing of the building opposite. Some light was competing with the moonlight and winning. I could smell smoke. Random shouts and screams sounded in the distance, surfacing from a turbulent sea of voices. A flicker of movement tugged at my attention from the corner of my eye. Turning that way I could see flames leaping into the sky and dancing amid illuminated smoke and drifting sparks. The fire was far away in the night and for a time seemed unrelated to my misery. Then I remembered. Dubaku was setting fires throughout the town. I was watching and waiting for an opportunity to move, to act.

  Should I do something now? I wondered.

  A distant scream was followed by hysterical shouted words that I could not make out. There was movement in the corners of the pen that snagged my attention. The people clustered together, looked into the night and whispered and sobbed and held each other, fighting the fear and hope that warred inside them. Beyond them the square began to fill up with soldiers moving purposefully; other figures clustered together throughout the square, moved by forces I couldn't grasp. I caught a brief glimpse of a robed man on the steps of the portico, surrounded by a crowd who attended him. I listened avidly, trying to make out his words over the distractions that tugged at my tattered attention. Odd phrases filtered through to where I sat in the cold shadows. Gather here. Secure a route. Gate. Block the roads. Keep the sheep away. My attention was caught by another bloom of flame in the night, making two fires that I could see. I wondered how many others there were, wondered how full the town now was of fi
re and fear. The enemy was reacting. Now that they were active one or more might think of me. I couldn't sit still longer and wait to see what happened. It was time to move. I tried to remember what I needed to do as a sharp breeze brought the first whiff of burning wood to me; a thrill of fear trickled through me in its wake. It was time to move. Every muscle in my legs was stiff and my knees hurt when I tried to bend them. It took time and all my concentration to manoeuvre myself onto my hands and knees and then sit back so that I knelt beside the wall, hands on my thighs, panting the smoke-tainted air and shivering with reaction to the effort it had taken to get that far. I was facing the wrong way. There were other fires bright in the night. More people spilled into the square. Disorienting shadows danced around me and voices echoed meaninglessly through me. I wanted to shake my head to clear my wits but remembered in time what a terrible idea that would be. Instead I groaned deliberately and brought one leg round to get a foot under me, shifted my weight onto it and using the wall to prop me up, forced myself to my feet with another pained sound escaping my lips. I had to move now, I decided, before the growing light of the fires made me too visible. The moonshadow that had hidden me was gone but the night remained an incoherent dance of flickering shadows. I shuffled along the length of the wall, still not focused on more than moving and forcing my body to respond to my will.

  I could hear the crackling of the flames now, and a subdued roar that underpinned everything else, defining the screams and shouts, the crying of children, the sound of running feet, the noises of purpose and panic. My own mind was like an island of confusion in a storm of chaos.

  Where was I heading?

  #

  I'd come to a halt, my feet in straw that bunched around my ankles and my hands resting on the smooth wood of the fence rails. There were others close by, shifting weight pressed against me briefly.

  I looked up, squinting against the wavering light of the fires. On the other side of the rail fence scores of people milled chaotically in front of me. Some passed almost close enough to touch. Someone near me ducked through the rails and joined the confusion, swallowed up and lost in a moment. Mechanically, I followed, moaning and nearly passing out as blood rushed to my head in a tide that threatened to burst my skull apart. I hung there for a moment, chest on one rail, one leg and arm through, then pushed myself up, brought my other arm through and gripped the rail with both hands; I grunted again as white hot pain shot through my left wrist, but a moment later I was out and a mad scramble of other bodies washed around me, nearly brushing me from my unsteady feet.

  I moved into the chaotic press and swirling confusion of people; flickering light and shadow danced among them and confused me further. Almost at once I was knocked from my feet and landed heavily on my hands and knees. Jarred, my head pounded and I found myself whimpering pitifully to myself. I hugged my left arm to my chest and crawled for a couple of moments, moving blindly, but didn't dare stay down amongst the profusion of legs that flashed by me. If someone kneed me in the head I thought I would die, or want to. Dizzy and disoriented, I forced myself up to my knees and looked around, trying to make sense of what was happening. The soldiers were driving people from the square. Striking randomly, they pushed and shoved and herded those they did not fell. As I came to my feet and turned about, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face locked in an group that moved with purpose on the steps of the council building. Jocasta was there, being bundled into the centre of a group of soldiers.

  My chance to go to her and bring her out was gone. I would have to content myself with survival for now. There was nothing I could do from inside the crowd being herded violently from the square. I went with them, bumping and staggering with every fumbling step. Off balance, I grabbed an arm to steady myself; the woman I held turned her face to me and screamed, danced back and nearly pulled me off my feet before I let go and staggered to keep myself upright. I must look a fright, I thought as I turned away from her and staggered on, losing sight of her almost at once. Increasingly I was supported by other bodies pressing close, even as the random nudging threatened to drive me to the ground. I went where the crowd went, jostled and pushed and shoved, struggling to keep my feet as the crowd forced its way into the mouth of a street where the full force of the distant but rapidly moving fires was revealed. For the first time I could feel the heat of the flames against my face, and like others decided at once that this was not the way I wanted to go; I turned to move back the way I had come but there was no hope of that. The press behind me was too dense and behind them soldiers pushed with spear butts and struck with the flats of flashing blades. An arc of blood rose through the air where one soldier was not so careful about what part of the blade he used. I turned back and started to try and move determinedly through the crowd, unable to make much progress for the bodies that now pressed on me from all sides. I could see a side street not too far ahead and decided to make for it. I wasn't alone; the press eased as people began to spread out and move faster. I nearly tripped over someone who had been knocked to the ground. For a split instant I thought to stop and help that person to their feet but I knew if I tried I would be knocked down and trampled also. Staggering, I headed for the wall nearest the street I wanted to reach, desperate for something to help me keep my feet, dizzy and weak and disoriented. My goal seemed to get further away as often as closer for a few frantic moments, then I was knocked into a doorway. I clung there, thankful for the respite even as I knew I dared not stay. In the confusion there was little chance of being recognized by soldiers, and I didn't believe would be actively looking for me, but the risk was still to great to wait until the crowd thinned. I took a moment to look back into the square, cast my gaze over the council building; behind it there was no fire. If I could make it around the square I was confident I would find a way out of the city. Yet the fires were spreading fast, the air now full of sparks and a rain of burning thatch. I would have to move fast. I would have to move faster than I could. With a sob of fear I stepped back out into the press and was instantly caught up in it, scraped down the wall by passing bodies that took no heed of who they pushed and shoved out of their way.

  At the corner I was afforded a view down a long street. Figures hurried ahead of me, blurred past me; in the distance I could see one of the towers at the corner of the town, its walls brightly lit by the dancing light of the flames that now seemed to be almost everywhere except directly ahead of me. The tower suddenly moved, seeming to leap upward six feet or more before dust thinly obscured it for a moment and it fell. Pressure slammed suddenly into the soles of my bare feet and I staggered. If I hadn't been hanging onto the wall I would have fallen for sure. As it was I danced a couple of random steps and staggered forward. Half the people I could see ahead of me were thrown from their feet amid a renewed barrage of screams and shouts of shock and fear. A cloud of dust was rising around where the tower had stood a moment before and spread in two lines that cut away from it, marking the walls of the town. For a moment, as I staggered forward uncertainly, I had no idea what had just happened. Those who had fallen were getting to their feet; others stood frozen to the spot or ran in random directions. Some didn't make it and some were knocked back down as panicked figures bowled into them. A flash of billowing skirts and hair and a woman disappeared from sight; I tried not to imagine the fate of the child she had been carrying. The crowd closed in around them and they were gone. There was no chance I could do anything for them. I could barely keep myself on my feet as I staggered down the length of the building, heading for where I now knew my maniple had arrived, their battle mage bringing down the walls and allowing them a broad line of attack into the town. The people heading that way were going to be caught between the fires and the attacking city soldiers with a battle mage who seemed in no mood to show restraint. I had to get there, to stop them from slaughtering these people who were already victims. I doubted I had any hope of saving any of them any more than I thought much of my chances of saving myself.

  Somethin
g hot brushed my head and landed on my shoulder; the flaring pain from the heat made me gasp as I slapped it away. Burned straw sparked and scattered away from my hand. I was suddenly mortally afraid of the fire, struggling to contain the panic that threatened to overwhelm me, near ready to add my own cries of fear to the crowd that surged past as I staggered on, staying close to the wall, trying to move faster, to flee the fire. Ahead of me a figure moved alone through the thinning crowd, an island of calm in the panicked mass of of the riotous mob surging around him. Anyone who got in his way didn't stay there long; a shift of balance, a touch and he was past, while those he made brief contact with spun away to be lost in the swirling confusion. His balance never faltered, his head turned, eyes seeing everything and concentrating on nothing. He became the focus of my attention as I faltered and came to a halt. I watched him sidestep, the blade in his hand licking out to kiss the back of a knee, left arm drifting up to catch a man under the chin and throw him from his feet, a woman spun away to crash into a wall. I had never seen anyone so ruthless, so utterly lacking in compassion or mercy.

  Well, maybe I had. Should I ever again look into a mirror, then I might see such cold and callous blue eyes looking back at me. Sapphire made steady progress against the tide of humanity; no one stayed in his way for more than an instant. I glanced away. Behind me the whole town seemed to be ablaze. When I turned back Sapphire was much closer. A moment later and he was beside me, hand on my arm to support me, gaze flickering up and down, assessing my condition.

  I knew how I must look; covered in blood and filth and barely able to keep my feet under me. “How did you recognize me?”

  He glanced around at what I had wrought and shrugged. “When have you ever looked any different?”