by Steven Poore
“I have heard one story of Lyriss,” he said, and she flinched a little. His voice sounded too loud in the stillness of the valley. “It is said the town’s elders begged two dragons to stand guard and protect them against attacks from the North. In exchange the dragons asked nothing more than the peace and freedom to do as they would in the hills here.”
Cassia was impressed. This was a children’s fable that she had heard just once, down on the coast to the east, but the storyteller there had set it in the hills overlooking the Berdellan plains. Try as she might, she could not remember the names of the two dragons who made that compact with the Berdellans. She turned and saw Meredith watching her expectantly, the staves he had carved held together in one hand. “So what happened after that?” she asked, as much to distract him from the forthcoming bout as to hear the end of the tale.
“The High King’s armies passed on and came upon Lyriss from the road to the east, of course,” Meredith replied. “The two dragons did nothing, because this was not a part of their contract with the city.”
“Which goes to show you should never make rash bargains with dragons,” Baum finished. “For men may act as cruelly as dragons, but dragons will never act as men do.”
She muttered that aphorism under her breath a few times as she poured water into their flasks from the pans she had shoved out into the rain the previous night. The rhythm of the words was not quite right. Perhaps if she worked on them as they passed through the hills she could polish this old story and draw in an audience. People remembered a well-spoken moral as much as they remembered a good dancing tune, and it would be a fine hook on which to hang her reputation.
The Heir to the North still stared out across the landscape, as though lost in his thoughts. A frown creased his face and he cocked his head to one side as if he had heard something Cassia tested her own hearing, but there was only the rustling of trees and bushes as they swayed in the breeze.
“Do you hear them?” Meredith asked, his voice hushed, almost reverent.
She shook her head, wondering what he had heard. Whatever it was, it must be at the very edge of the senses. “What is it?”
“They still sleep,” Meredith said.
She stood there for a long moment, trying to work out if he was making a fool of her, but his expression did not change. Who still sleep? The dragons? No, that would be ridiculous. It was only a story.
But when they mounted to leave the ruined fort, a kernel of doubt nagged at her mind. It was only a story. But so was Stromondor. And Caenthell. And the warlock Malessar. And now she knew they were all true.
Meredith had laid more bruises on top of her existing collection, and Cassia ached all over as they rode down into the lands that had once been Lyriss. She stared up at the hillsides with fresh eyes. It was her imagination, and nothing more, she told herself firmly, that caused the undulating peaks to resemble the sinuous backbones and tails of monstrous dragons.
Chapter Seven
There were people in Lyriss. Moreover, to Baum’s evident amusement, a small town occupied the ground where the city had stood in ancient times. They had come upon a road, not much more than dirty ruts in the ground, running from the east and curving slowly to the south, and the old soldier decided to take the southward route, reasoning that travelling east would only take them back to the Emperor’s March again.
“They may be cowed right now,” he said, when Cassia reminded him of the threats he had made to Vescar Almoul, “but we Northerners are a stubborn breed. There is little sense in tempting fate in such a fashion, and I have no wish to be disturbed in the middle of the night by a disgruntled half-captain who might have just enough courage to put a knife through my heart.”
When Cassia thought on that, she pictured Hetch or Rann Almoul himself looming over her in the dark, and she shivered. Rejoining the Emperor’s March would not be a good idea.
The following day brought them to the town. There were cattle in the fields around the low walls, and shacks, workshops and small farmsteads dotted the land. Chimney smoke rose and drifted south with the wind, carrying the smells of civilisation away from them. Cassia ran a critical eye over the fields, comparing them unfavourably to those farther north and east. These were smaller, less well-tended, and the livestock looked thin, scouring the patchy grasses with hungry fervour.
“These people are not prosperous,” Meredith noted, in a voice that carried across the fields and seemed designed to attract hostile attention.
“I doubt they have much passing trade,” Baum agreed. “The March will take all travellers due north, leaving this place to wilt in the shade. Nevertheless, my good prince, I think reminding them too much of this will not make them gracious hosts.”
Meredith bowed his head. “I shall remain quiet then,” he said.
The town was in better condition than the fields, but not by much. As Cassia rode through the gates, attempting to conceal herself between the two men, the first thing she saw was the gibbet that stuck out from the top of the gate frame. The corpse that hung from it had been there some time, at least a couple of weeks. She had seen it before, in other towns. Many places followed the custom of displaying captured outlaws and murderers over their gates, to discourage others from taking the same path, but it always unnerved her. She imagined the corpse turning gently in the breeze to watch her with hollow, unblinking sockets. Her father often joked that should he murder a good tale, he would swing at the gates by morning. Cassia hadn’t found that joke funny. Especially not after Varro.
The corpse set the tone for the rest of the town. A quiet, miserable place, the houses and workshops that lined the main street had their doors and gates firmly shuttered, their windows hidden away. Some looked half-built, while in a few places the ground was scorched where buildings had burned to their foundations, stone slabs overgrown with weeds the only sign there had once been life. There was little traffic on the road – a pair of men hauled a cart, wheels squeaking and complaining, in the opposite direction, never once glancing at the mounted travellers. A few labourers huddled at the side of the road, their hoes and picks abandoned in the mud and dirt as they talked in a close-knit group. There was no noise, Cassia realised abruptly: not the screams of children, nor the cries of traders. The town was as quiet as the grave.
“I don’t want to stop here,” she said quietly.
“A frequent complaint, I should think,” Baum said. “But we need some stores, since your father took much of ours with him. And I believe I have an acquaintance here too.”
Cassia hunched down in the saddle, reminded once more of Norrow’s failings. As long as you don’t think I take after him, she thought bitterly. It took her a moment to register what Baum had said, and she wondered who he could possibly know in a dead-end town like this.
The road widened into the town’s sorry excuse for a main square. On one side was a small temple, the stone edifice standing almost apologetically amid a motley collection of decrepit taverns and shuttered wooden houses, none of which would have passed muster further north. On the other side of the road was the market, which comprised of a few desultory stalls and half-empty cattle pens. Slender pickings for any pickpocket unfortunate enough to try his luck here. A good thing after all, Cassia decided, that her father had abandoned them.
Baum hauled in before the temple and squinted up at the fascia over the portico. “Dedicated to Feyenn and Alcibaber,” he muttered disdainfully. “Vanity.”
Cassia glanced over at him, shocked. “You mean they are not real, sir?”
“Oh, they exist.” He laughed. “They are real. But they are not gods. Never that.”
He dismounted and looped the reins about the post at the foot of the portico. “I have not passed this way in years. I wonder if the priest still lives. Meredith, remain with the horses. They are worth more than the rest of this town put together.”
Excluded from Meredith’s instructions, Cassia took that as an invitation. She dropped from the saddle, wincing at t
he twinges in her legs, and scrambled up the steps of the portico behind Baum before he could change his mind, or Meredith could haul her back. It took her a moment to get accustomed to walking again.
The portico led into an open space, bound on both sides by colonnades. Carved figures stood in alcoves along the walls, and at irregular intervals across the ground. Cassia kept to the stone path that led through the colonnades, increasing her pace to keep up with Baum, who strode across the open space as though he owned it.
The stone figures were a mismatched collection of old representations and new carvings. Men with heavily muscled torsos stared at the sky, the colour painted upon their eyes faded and worn away. Women draped in long gowns, usually with a single breast bared, stood with their heads tilted downward, servile and graceful.
She paused for a moment and turned back. That last figure . . . a man, his stance straight and proud, shoulders pushed back in defiance of something before him. But the features of his face had been chiselled away, jagged craters showing the marks of someone’s anger. It was the shape of his back that drew Cassia’s eye. It looked far too large, as though the sculptor’s talent had failed him at that point. But as she looked closer she realised the figure had been vandalised here too. It had been created with something protruding from behind the man’s shoulders, on both sides of his back. She examined the pedestal, but she could not see any inscription.
Why would anybody deface such a thing inside a temple? Why would it be kept after it had been so damaged? She shook her head. It must have some value for the priests to retain it and keep it on display. It was another puzzle.
The sound of voices broke her concentration. She left her examination of the mutilated statue and headed back up the colonnade. Baum had stopped outside the door and was speaking with someone inside. Or, rather, he was being spoken to: the man beyond the doorway had a lot to say and sounded unwilling to let Baum get more than half a word in.
“. . . Feyenn was never a Hellean god, you know. Of course you do. You’re a learned man, I see that in your eyes. The key to a man’s soul is in his eyes – did I mention that before? I must write it down before I forget. They say memory is the first faculty to flee in the face of old age, you know, but – heh – I can never remember who said it to me. Not that anybody ever wants to talk to me any more. Can’t think why. Damned ignorant fools, sitting miserably under the hills and wondering if the rain will come through the roof. That’s all they want to do. I should never have come here – never would have if they hadn’t wanted me to keep them company.”
He coughed. “Awful weather. Sits on the chest. Nettle expectorant, that’s what you need. Did you ask a question?”
“Yes,” Baum said. “Several.”
“Ah. Oh. Well, never mind. Who’s that skulking over there?”
The old soldier turned and beckoned Cassia forward. “An apprentice,” he said.
As she approached she saw that the temple’s priest was a wizened old man, bent and gnarled like a weather-blasted tree. His hair and beard were patchy and unevenly sheared, and his eyes were rheumy and unfocused. He held himself up against the door frame with fingers thin and dark as a moorhen’s foot, and his robe was caked with damp and filth. It was easy to see why the town’s inhabitants would not come anywhere near him. Cassia would never have named him as any kind of priest.
“A fair boy,” the priest declared. “Very fair. You like the statues, eh? The rippling muscles? The godly thighs?”
Cassia blushed and ducked her head, unsure of her reply. The priest must have seen movement on the colonnade, but his sight was so far gone that, with her hair pulled back and hidden under her storyteller’s cap, he had taken her for a boy.
“Ah, if my legs were still as shapely as those . . .”
“We wish to purchase supplies,” Baum interrupted him loudly.
The words had a magical effect on the old man. He pulled himself straighter and his eyes grew sharp, the years falling away at the mention of coin.
“Passing through Lyriss, eh? Passing through? Where would you be going that you have to pass through this miserable hole in the ground?” The priest shuffled forward and squinted at the sky. “Be another downpour today, more than likely. Lyriss’s tears, that’s what they call it. Bawling like a widowed mother. Well then, come on in, don’t stand on ceremony. Heaven knows they wouldn’t.”
He re-entered the darkened interior of the temple, gesturing vaguely with one hand and clutching at the doorframe and stone walls with the other. Cassia hesitated, glancing at Baum for guidance. He appeared quietly amused.
“Sir? Is he . . . ?”
“Harmless?” Baum said, in a low tone. “Almost certainly. I would stay beyond his reach, if I were you, but while he believes there is money to be made from us he’ll be as honest as you or I.”
Still she hovered at the lintel. “Will we buy our supplies from him, then? Why not from one of the market traders?”
“Who would undoubtedly fleece us by charging double or triple the value of the goods, and then give us short measure?” Baum replied. “While our friendly priest may charge a premium, he will deal with us fairly. After all, the townsfolk have donated their food to him to begin with.” His smile widened. “Did your father never teach you that trick?”
She shook her head. Norrow had always been strangely reticent around priests. Now she thought on it she was certain he had never asked at the temples for help, no matter how destitute they were. “The townsfolk will not be pleased with us, sir.”
Baum was not troubled by that. “I am not here to make their lives any easier,” he said.
Like most temple interiors, this one was cold and unwelcoming. Plaster flaked from the walls, old paintings and scenes of worship drifting into dust and destruction. There were brackets on each wall for lamps and torches, but these were empty and the only illumination came from slender windows high up in the walls. Dust, stirred up by the priest’s passing, danced through thin shafts of light. Two altars sat against the back wall, offerings of food and slaughtered fowl at the base of each one. Even in this gloom Cassia could see the offerings were days old. The stench caught in her throat.
There was a thick, closed door in the wall on her right, but the priest led them off to the left, towards what were presumably his living quarters. Cassia heard him muttering from beyond the doorway, his voice echoing as he held a conversation with himself. A flickering glow bloomed against the doorframe.
“Come in, come in, don’t stand on ceremony,” the priest called again, his raised voice cracking. “Feyenn and Alcibaber won’t mind.”
Well, of course not, especially if they aren’t really gods. But I only have Baum’s word for that.
Baum pushed her forward and she entered the priest’s chamber, her shoulders tense. The candlelight revealed a small, sparse room, with a pallet on one side and a small hearth opposite. There was barely enough space for the pair of low stools and the battered chest that doubled as a table. The fire in the hearth glowed, but gave off no warmth, and the priest jabbed at it before settling on one of the stools.
“Do sit down, do sit down,” he said. “Which direction did you come from, do you mind me asking? From the March, or the hills to the west? My money, had I any, would be on the March, as it is rare we have visitors from the west. Sometimes a few caravans venture into the valleys, but they tend to leave sharply once they realise there’s not much welcome for them here. Not much wealth either, if truth be told, so honest labour is hard earned. Do you think it warm enough in here? I can stir up the fire, but your boy must fetch the firewood as Gelmik has not been today. Tiresome boy; he takes too much after his father and will come to a bad end if he does not watch his step. I once caught him trying the lock out there, would you believe?” He gestured vaguely towards the heavy door. “He swore blind it was not what it appeared, that he had seen vermin scurry under the door, but I switched him anyway.”
Cassia, frozen in the act of crouching against the wall, gl
anced at Baum. The old man had taken the other stool, so she had to squat in the filthy rushes that covered the floor. He seemed oblivious to this rambling monologue, content to sit with his back straight and his arms folded until, at last, the priest ran out of words and an uncomfortable silence filled the room.
“Is there much news from the road?” Baum asked.
The priest shook his head. “Nothing to mention. Nothing to mention. There was a tax, just before high summer, but they left with their coffers more empty than full. Always the way. They took a few boys for the legions instead. But not Gelmik, of course. Useless boy.”
There was an odd expression on Baum’s face, one Cassia could not decipher. She thought he might be lost in his memories. “Have you been here long, sir?” she asked, eager to break the quiet. Even the priest’s meandering replies were better than awkward silence.
“Hah! An observant boy!” the priest cackled. “Does it look like I came here yesterday? Man and boy now, man and boy. I heard the calling and I came. They talked to others too, to begin with, but Fiscum died, and then Hoplar got the wasting sickness, and now they just talk to me. When they talk at all. Mostly they just listen. Which is more than that lot do.” He jerked his head at the outside wall, indicating the townsfolk, and spat into the hearth. “None of them listen. I told them, I did, I told them it was a bad place for a town, but they wouldn’t hear me. Flat land, they said. Flat land and a stream. And the walls of the temple to protect them when the soldiers came, after they’d crept down and stolen the herds off the plains. Then they thought they could be honest men, plough the fields and grow things, but I told them on that too: I said, it’s not in your blood and the land knows it. Did they listen? Did they?”
Startled, Cassia could only shake her head. “Um . . . no?”
“No, they did not,” the priest continued, as though she hadn’t spoken. “A wretched hive of mediocrity, this town. A stain on the history of Lyriss.”
