Michael raised his fist in the air. “Hail, Romana, Princess Imperial, long may she reign!”
“Hail Romana!” they cried, in thundering waves of sound so great they disturbed the clouds in heaven above. “Hail Romana! Hail Romana! Long may she reign!”
Romana smiled as she let their acclaim deluge her, submerge her, swirl around her like a maelstrom.
Do you hear them, all you foes of Empire? Do you hear them cheer my name?
Your insolence will not be forgotten, your trespass will not be forgiven, and your harassment will no longer be tolerated.
This is a new Empire now, or perhaps I should say it is an Empire making new what had become old.
The sleeping giant has awoken.
Summer’s Leave-Taking
Summer’s eyes widened as she beheld the treasures that lay all around her.
Her studies provided the names of some of them: the shining sword of Jon Ironsides, the silver harp of Joyless Melody, the armour of the Elf King, the magical hat of Arial Prosper that could turn its wearer invisible. There was a skull at the back of the dark, gloomy vault that she would have sworn belonged to Sigurd, the Bloodflame, strongest and greatest of the Dragon Gods; his eyeless sockets seemed to stare at her from across the room, and his teeth seemed to yearn for the taste of her flesh.
Tearing her eyes away from him, Summer turned her attention to items that she did not recognise: a simple wooden staff, a stonemason’s hammer, a carpenter’s saw, all mounted upon marble plinths, clearly items of honour and power both and yet she had not heard of them.
And a pile of blue spherical stones, not sapphires but something else, each the size of a duck’s egg more or less, glittering, casting a glow across the grey and unlit room and even upon Summer’s golden skin; across from them, on another marble plinth, sat a pile of green stones, just as large as the blue. They too glowed, they were amongst the only other source of light in the vault…but they did not draw her, as the blue stones did. The blue, they seemed to call out to her. She could feel her hand inching towards them, pulled by some invisible force that she was helpless to deny.
“This is the Vault,” Aurora said, the capital letter in the name falling neatly into place in Summer’s mind as she processed her teacher’s words. “This is where all the greatest and most dangerous artefacts of our history and the history of Werolon that came before us are kept, for their safekeeping and the safety of those who might come into contact with them.” She stood in front of her two students, so that the light coming in from the corridor outside did not penetrate far enough to reach her, casting the Prophet of the Union in a shadow from which even her own natural glow could not escape. Her white dress seemed grey here, and the golden bands upon her arm lost all their lustre, as though some artefact stored in this place could suck the brilliance even from the greatest beauty in all the land. “Some of what is stored down here has been used for great evil, some of it for great good. But all of it is perilous. Touch nothing. That includes you, Dawn.”
Dawn hastily drew back her hand from where she had been about to touch the golden bow of Arthemus Trueshot. “Sorry, my lady.”
Aurora chuckled. “Quite all right, Dawn. Curiosity is natural, but it should always be restrained by exercise of wisdom.”
Summer felt her brow furrow, almost of its own accord. “Lady Aurora?”
“Yes, Summer?”
“If this place is so perilous, then why have you brought us here?”
Aurora turned to her, to both of them, a fond smile playing upon her ageless face. “Because the two of you, of all my people, should understand that there are moments when we must risk what is perilous in order to prevent a crueller and more certain fate. Because, if either of you fulfils the destiny that fate has laid out for you, there will come a time when something of yours may sit in this vault.” Her smile broadened. “And because I thought that two such diligent scholars of history and avid consumers of adventure stories might enjoy seeing what we keep down here, was I wrong?”
“Not in the least bit,” Dawn said, her tone one of such awe that Summer was worried the other girl might wet herself with excitement. Dawn gestured at a tattered black flag hanging in the south-east corner of the room near the door. “Is that the flag of the Dauntless Obsidian? The only Touma of the Most Ancient Empire to withstand the ice giants?”
“The very same,” Aurora said. “When the survivors helped to found the Winter Guard they put aside their flag, and it passed into my keeping.”
“I don’t believe this,” Dawn said, or actually not so much said as whispered ecstatically. Summer grinned at Dawn’s obvious excitement, while keeping one eye open for a puddle around her legs. “It’s the actual flag of the actual Dauntless Obsidian! And it has all the tears in it just like in the book!” She turned away, and gasped at some fresh discovery. “And that must be the hoe that-“
“Lady Aurora, what are these?” Summer asked, interrupting Dawn’s enthusiasm to speak in a more studied, languid tone as she gestured at the glowing blue and green spheres. Of course, she was just as eager as Dawn was to know the answer to her question, but Summer would never show that. That was part of who she was to the rest of the world: insouciant, casual, unexcited. It was part of how she set herself apart from the chimp who trailed after her, always scurrying in her wake.
Still, she wanted to know. She wanted to know so badly that if she didn’t get an answer she felt as though she might have to resort to begging for one like Dawn begging for help on her essays.
Aurora glanced at the stones, first at the blue and then the green. “In the language of the dwarves they are called Wan-nalda.”
It took Summer barely a moment to translate the dwarvish. “World-needles?”
“That is the literal translation,” Aurora said. “Does the name suggest any purpose to you?”
“The dwarves thought that there was an invisible tapestry of magic all around us,” Dawn answered, looking up from where she had been squealing over the burning gloves of Winters Whiteflame. “They likened the use of magic to plucking the threads of that tapestry.”
“It’s still the best analogy for the use of the true magic that anyone has come up with,” Summer added. And I could have answered the first part as well. “So these crystals, they amplify magic?”
“No, not quite,” Aurora said. “These stones have a specific purpose. The dwarves believed that they could use them, in conjunction with the threads of magic – hence the word needle – to travel between worlds.”
“Like the dragon lords?” Dawn asked.
“More like the fair folk,” Summer said.
“Again, correct, both of you,” Aurora said. “But the dwarven archmages had already begun work on these travelling crystals long before either dragons or elves were heard of in this land. The blue stones were designed to enable travel outwards, and the green to be used for the return journey. It was at the height of the dwarven power, the zenith of their civilisation, and the great mages of the dwarves could only speculate as to the existence of other worlds.”
“Why were they so sure that they were there?” Summer asked. “They must have been pretty certain, to have tried to find a way to get there.”
“That,” Aurora confessed. “I do not know.”
“Did they work?” Dawn asked; her voice held a slight tremor.
“Again, no one knows,” Aurora said. “The dragons came to this world before the dwarves could venture forth to others. The power of the dwarves was broken, their cities were laid to waste, their treasures stolen, their archmages slain or devoured. The appetite for such arcane experiments died with them. The stones were kept as curiosities by Dominion lords or Imperial governors, passing from one hand to the next along with the territory. Until they came into my possession, where I have kept them safe these seven hundred years past.”
Summer nodded. “But since the dragons came, and then the fair folk after them, that proves that they were onto something, doesn’t it? There
really are other worlds, so there’s no reason these stones shouldn’t work, is there?”
Aurora’s eyes narrowed. “No. I suppose not.”
“Do you know how they were meant to be used?”
“No,” Aurora said. “And I do not think that that is a subject that should be pried into further.”
Her tone was implacable, and Summer knew from experience that she would get no more out of her. Any attempt to try was likely to lead to anger, and a swift, sharp punishment. Nothing painful of course, for Aurora had never hurt Summer and never would, but nevertheless something to remind her to, as Lady Aurora would say, temper her curiosity with wisdom.
But they called to her, those bright blue glowing stones. They were more beautiful than any sapphires, more perfect than any pearls, brighter than the stars. They seemed to pulsate as they cast their glow upon her, and as they pulsed they called out Summer, Summer, Summer.
With the attention of both Aurora and Dawn directed elsewhere, Summer’s hand reached out and snatched a blue crystal from the middle of the pile, sticking it into her pocket before anyone could notice. Immediately it ceased to glow so bright, and a good thing too or Aurora would have seen it for sure.
It was strictly for research purposes, Summer told herself. She only wanted to know how it worked. Her only interest was academic.
After all, she had a good home here in the League, in Werolon, in Dareth. She was a student of the prophet herself, and assured of a great and glorious destiny as the champion of the land.
Why should she ever want to go anywhere else?
Summer ran her bow across the string of her violin, closing her eyes as she let the music surround her, the notes of the symphony dancing in the darkness around her mind.
She wished that it could carry her off completely, but even with her eyes shut and her ears full of music she remained distressingly tethered to the world. She could still feel the wood of the violin rest beneath her chin; feel the carpet giving way beneath her boots.
She kept playing, drawing the bow back and forth, back and forth, in quick strokes followed by long caresses, reaching for the control that music brought her. That was why she had first learnt to play the violin, at Lady Aurora’s insistence: to learn control. It would enable Summer to better master her magic, Lady Aurora had said, both the Call that was her birthright and the True Magic which she had begun to study. If she could learn to control the music, to regulate its flow, to bend it to her will, then she would be able to so control the fire when she called it forth, to control the energies of the world when she twisted them to do her bidding. When she could control the music, then Summer would be able to control herself.
And she wanted to control herself now. She wanted to control herself very much. That was why she was playing when she should have been finishing packing up her things. That was why she was surrounding herself with the sounds of the music, closing her eyes against the world, swaying in place as she reached for the calm and the control she had been taught to feel whenever she played. Summer played, and waited for the music to soothe her.
It didn’t work. This might have had something to do with the fact that she was playing the overture from Nightingale’s Obsession, in which a vengeful, jilted woman nerves herself to murder her unfaithful lover. It might also have had something to do with the fact that Summer could identify with the woman more than ever before right at this moment.
I gave him all I could call mine, the words of the libretto echoed through Summer’s mind as she played, her grip on the bow growing increasingly tight.
I gave him all I could call mine/ But he gave me nothing but lies, it sounded much better when sung in the original Qadessi of the Most Ancient Empire, but even in the translation the words echoed through Summer’s mind, striking her soul where betrayal had already scarred it.
Summer stopped playing, coming to a halt mid-piece with a screech of her violin. She scowled as she lowered the instrument to her side, opening her amber eyes to stare about her room.
It reminded her of those rooms whose occupants had died, and whose heirs were in the process of clearing out: half packed away into cases and boxes, half laid out exactly as it had been when tragedy struck. And Summer felt just as bereaved as any of them, though it was only her dreams and her ambitions that had perished.
My dreams, my hopes and everything I thought I knew about my place in the world.
Some things were exactly where they had been before: the bearskin rug sitting atop the mottled red carpet, the throw cushions spread out upon the window seat, where Summer would sit with the sunlight streaming in and study the latest weighty tome that Lady Aurora had assigned to her. There was her desk, with her name carved into it (Summer had had the idea that it might be preserved for posterity, and that in future years people might marvel that the great Summer Phoenix had once sat at his desk and wrote her essays upon history and philosophy), there was the lamp she had kept burning into the night time and time again as she worked until her eyes were heavy. There were the soot marks above the fireplace from when she had tried to call a fire, but sang too forcefully and created a stronger blaze than she had intended. There was the chair that had a broken leg, splayed out at an odd angle, splintering away from the rest of the chair, after Dawn had fallen into it while they were horsing around. They were all still there, exactly as they had been yesterday, and the day before.
They might even be there tomorrow for all Summer knew, though she hoped not. It was bad enough that someone else was taking her whole life, but did they have to take her things as well? If they were going to sit at her window seat, did they have to do it on her cushions? Did they have to work on her desk? It had her name on it, for prophets’ sake!
At least they would not be reading her books. They were among the things that had already been packed away, sitting in boxes while the varnished shelves sat empty, bare and forlorn. The walls were bereft of the sketches that Summer had hung there, the wardrobe was empty of clothes, the bed had been stripped of its coverings. They were all put away, folded into cases, rolled up and stuffed into bags. Her quills, her ink, her traho set that Lady Aurora had given her for her last birthday, with the handsome ebony and ivory pieces, all put away into chest and cases.
There were only a few things left to be put away, like the violin in her hands, and only a single bag sitting empty. The bag that she had not started to pack yet, in case it aroused any suspicion.
Not that anyone would care, to be perfectly honest, but Summer didn’t want to risk being stopped.
Why should it matter to them, anyway? It isn’t as if I’m wanted here.
Summer bared her teeth, only to stop as soon as she realised that she had started to growl.
Damn it, I thought I’d gotten past that. She’d done that a lot as a child, growling at people she didn’t like, baring her oversized canines at them. She’d worked hard to stop doing it, though, and thought she had overcome that part of herself. Maybe this situation had just gotten her that riled up.
She looked at the violin in her hand, resting the musical instrument against her leg. Maybe she should start playing again? But then, it hadn’t really been helping her too much. She was beyond the calming power of music right now.
For a moment Summer was sorely tempted to smash the stupid thing into splinters. But it had been a gift from Lady Aurora, and she couldn’t bring herself to hate the woman and all her works no matter what she did.
That was possibly the worst thing of all.
So Summer stomped across her room, her boots thumping on the floor, and flung the violin into its case as firmly as she could without damaging it, before slamming the lid down with a satisfying thud.
Only then did she realise that there was someone standing in the doorway, watching her.
Summer scowled. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Some time,” Lady Aurora confessed. She had been leaning against the doorframe but now she straightened herself out, smoothing out
the folds of her shimmering white gown, stepping delicately into the room itself. Summer caught a glimpse of her feet, enclosed in delicate sandals of spun gold, emerging briefly from beneath the hem of her dress before disappearing under the airy skirt once more. Though it was a bright day outside, with the sunlight streaming in through the large window, nevertheless the room seemed brighter for Aurora’s presence. Like the sun she was light, it shone from her fair and flawless skin, from her golden hair, from her pure white dress, from the golden bands she wore upon her arms, the gilded necklace clasped around her throat. Only the light from her eyes of midnight blue was less than usual: there was no sparkle in them today, no shine of happiness as there so often was. Summer wondered if she was feigning contrition to try and mollify Summer somehow.
Aurora looked at Summer. Summer glared back at her. There was a time, as late as a few hours ago, when the gaze of the prophet Aurora, who had led the Callers out of slavery in Qadessa, defied the dragon lords, defeated the frost giants and founded the Sacred League would have made her bow her head in shame and confess to all her wrongs. But that time was past now. That era had been ended by Aurora herself, so she had no one else to blame for the fact that she could no longer bring Summer to heel the way she once had.
“I hope you will keep up your music, if only as a hobby,” Aurora said in a voice more melodic than any sound that could have sprung from Summer’s violin. “You have a true talent for it.”
Summer blinked, before her lip curled into a sneer. “So, is that your advice for me? That I should take up busking?”
Aurora smiled. “I think that, if you chose to pursue it seriously, you could play in any of the great concert halls in the League.”
Short Swords: Tales from the Divine Empire (The First Sword Chronicles Book 3) Page 10
