She wondered whether this stranger may be implored to help her. It felt a better option than retracing her steps and encountering Uthor. Emelia walked over to the gates and glanced at the sign. It made no sense to her illiterate eyes and she slipped after the man.
Emelia was in a small garden interspersed by engraved stones. The grass had grown over them, like overly long hair. The gravelled path crossing the lawn was dotted with little mounds where it had seeded further. There were four small buildings that were difficult to see in the half-light. The closest had an iron door that stood open. The buildings were bland and functional, with few windows and flat slate roofs.
A tingle of excitement and daring arose in Emelia as she crept forward. Her own breathing seemed to be astonishingly loud in the silence of this curious garden and her breath left a vapour trail behind her as she crept to the door.
Emelia glanced through the open door but the man was nowhere to be seen. If she was so sure about this gentleman then why hadn’t she called out? The corridor beyond the door was decorated with dust and cobwebs. It ran ten feet and was lit only by mediocre light from a window so filthy as to be near opaque.
Emebaka’s voice whispered, tread carefully, Emelia, there is something dark going on here. She paused and considered turning and leaving but a twist of curiosity gripped her, pulling her forward like a fish on a hook.
In a small hall at the end of the passage the cloaked man stooped. He had slid a stone slab from the floor and Emelia could see that there were about a dozen more placed on the floor. The slab had been covering a dark pit and with horror Emelia saw a skeletal arm lolling out of the hole, its mummified flesh hanging from it like parchment. By Torik, she thought, I am in a cemetery.
The dark man was placing a metal casket into the hole. He paused for a moment and opened the casket as if confirming the contents. A blackness seemed to emanate from the interior, a paradoxical gloom, which shrouded the man’s hands in inky shadows. He snapped the lid shut and then lowered it into the grave. The stone cover grated as he slid it back over the hole.
Emelia was shaking as she snuck back out of the room. She did not have long before he turned towards the passage she had just emerged from. Her heart pounded in her ears and she felt suddenly desperate to pass water even though her mouth was parched. Emelia’s foot scraped against the wall as she exited. The pale man jerked around and his dark eyes met Emelia’s.
He smirked and prowled towards her, his hand reaching for a long knife at his belt. Emelia ran as if Nekra herself was after her, shoes clattering on the dusty stone as she flew from the doorway and into the cold air. Her foot skidded on the gravel as she landed and she stumbled then righted herself, sprinting on towards the gates. The iron frames looked skeletal in the moonlight and ridiculously far away.
This was no masque making phantasmal threats; this was a sinister man with a knife who was intent on her murder.
Emelia reached the gates and began squeezing through the gap, scraping her belly on the flaking post. The bitter scent of rust filled her nostrils as the powder fell on her face—it was like the odour of old blood. She spared a glance back and saw the man emerge from the mausoleum door, brandishing his dagger. A golden funnel was tucked in his belt, its glitter like a coin in the murky depths of the ocean. Terror gave her a burst of energy as she scraped past the gates and into the square. How had she got into this mess?
Please Torik do not let me die here in this lonely square. All her dreams, all her hopes would come to nought, bled out on the mucky cobbles of this dingy corner of Coonor.
Two voices startled her as she darted across the square and Emelia nearly ran full tilt into their owners. A pair of the city guard, part of Lord Ebon-Farr’s garrison, were before her, looking with curiosity at her bedraggled figure. Emelia almost cried with relief; she had reached safety at last.
“Alright, young one? What’s going on with you, eh? Too late to be out in this part of town I’d say,” the older one said.
Emelia couldn’t speak such was her joy and she turned to gesture at the dark-cloaked man as he emerged through the gap in the gate. His thin lips were sneering at the trio. He held the knife before him and raised one hand to point at Emelia.
“The girl is mine,” he said. His voice was like a sigh from a grave. “Her essence promises to be most…succulent.”
“I don’t think so, pal,” the younger guard said, drawing his sword. “Now why don’t you put down the dagger and we’ll not give you too hard a kicking for scaring this lass.”
A creeping dread arose in Emelia and inside her mind the voice of Emebaka, which had so far been suspiciously reserved, hissed Emelia don’t stop running. These two are but an irritation to him.
There had been many times in her life since she first welcomed the little impish voice that she had ignored it, reprimanded it and even entered into pointless debates with it. This was not one of those times; she had a definite sense that Emebaka was correct.
The two soldiers had forgotten Emelia and were moving towards the dark-cloaked man. His outstretched hand twisted and appeared to scoop a piece of darkness from the shadows of the square. He spoke strange words and then flicked it at the older guard.
The tar like mass struck the guard in the face, enveloping his helmet and he let out a scream of terror. “I can not see! Torik’s breath, I am blind!”
His companion charged at the man, his sword swinging. The dark man evaded the attack and slid into the shadows. The guard halted, bewildered and looked around for his opponent. Emelia gasped. He had simply disappeared, as if he had been nothing more than a shadow himself.
Then Emelia spotted him, emerging from the darkness at the opposite side of the square to where he had stood just a moment ago. He was about forty feet away from her and, chuckling with a shrill cold laugh, he thrust forward his hand again. His whispering voice muttered arcane words that seemed to scratch the very air with their hateful sound. The blackness of his surrounds flowed from him. The soldier, caught off-guard by the mage’s sudden shift across the square, could not avoid the magical beam. The darkness poured over him like a wave and he whimpered in horror as it consumed him, corroding his flesh like acid.
The guard crumpled dead to the floor, half his body eaten away. Emelia felt nauseous as she saw his ruined chest and the glisten of his exposed organs in the half-light. She backed away from the square and into an alley, whilst the mage strolled towards the blinded guard, dagger raised. His screams of terror ended abruptly as Emelia staggered down the alley.
The passage was narrow, situated between two tall stone buildings, and was littered with fragments of broken barrels and rotted vegetables. Its darkness was thick; the Dark-mage could appear at any time next to her and she may not even know until his knife slipped into her belly.
She stumbled with her arms outstretched and struck the wall without even seeing it was there. A white flash of pain lit her vision for an instant to be replaced by a thumping in her head.
Emelia leant sobbing against the cold brick of the wall. The chase had ended now, she realised. What had begun with a stupid panic in the market square would now end in lonely death in an alley far from her friends. She would gaze no more on those sunrises as the dawn patrol of knights flew their mighty griffons. She would have no opportunity to say her farewell to Sandila or Abila. There would be no chance to ever look her father in his eyes and ask him ‘why?’ Why did you sell me? Why did you send me away? Why do you cry those tears of gold?
Emelia scraped along the rough surface of the wall. She was like that crab in the rock pool on that beach a lifetime away from here, scurrying sideways yet never getting anywhere.
“I can almost taste your fear, little one,” the terrible voice said, echoing in the darkness of the alleyway.
“Please...please, don’t kill me. I won’t tell anyone...I won’t,” Emelia said with a sob.
“Oh, I know, I know,” the voice said. “But sorcery makes me ravenous and you exude such life fo
rce.”
Emelia felt sick and her head was splitting with pain. She could not tell how close the Dark-mage was.
Think quickly, by the Gods, think quickly, Emebaka screamed.
“The Arch-mage is soon to be my master. I...I am of great value to him,” Emelia said, trying to keep the desperation out of her tone.
There was a silence in the alleyway and Emelia looked about in the inky darkness. Then she heard the scrape of steel down the brick, mere feet away.
“Inkas-Tarr is an old...acquaintance of mine. Knowing I shall be killing something so valuable to him gives me great delight. Cry more, little one, it adds to the succulence.”
Upset and anger rose within her at the injustice. Damn this sadist, she would not beg nor cry, nor give him the satisfaction of a quiet death. She would spit and scream and tear and gouge, dagger or not, until the last drop of blood had drained from her body and her soul would soar to the arms of the Air Father.
“I’ll cry no more for you,” she said, her fists clenched.
She could feel his fetid breath on her face as her headache began to thud like the drums of the carnival. She pressed her back against the wall and readied her legs to kick. The chill of the bricks seeped through her woollen cloak and entered her chest then her head and belly and she had a curious sensation of tumbling backwards in the pitch black, a speckling tide of pins and needles coursing through her.
A recognition struck Emelia that she was falling and her hands flailed out for a hold. The impact on the ground jarred her and she gasped in surprise as she proceeded to roll down a gravely slope, out of control. Her long legs tried to seek some traction and found it on a rock that scraped her legs raw.
Emelia stared up at the night sky, its radiant spatter of stars stretching like a colossal painting before her eyes. She sat up and looked around to gain her bearings. A surge of nausea erupted in her belly and she retched violently.
Emelia observed that she was sat on the stony riverbank. The water of the river was tinted a mercurial colour by the bright light of the Eerian moon. She sought the other moon, which she could just see over the rooftops of the buildings that backed onto the waterside. To her left the river raced towards a cliff edge, about a hundred yards away. Those must be the Falls of the Mists and this the River Garnet, she thought, which put her on the edge of Cheapside at the far end from where the Road of Gems lead down to the Minerstown.
How had she got from the alley to here? Had the Dark-mage had some change of heart and used his powers to move her through the shadows? The idea almost held credence until she saw that there were no shadows where she sat such was the clarity of the moonlight.
Emotion erupted like a geyser inside her and she began to cry, at first meekly then in large hungry sobs that wracked her body. This day was like a dream and her mind was a turmoil of relief, fear, guilt, hatred, anger, pity and joy.
The figure beside her had probably been there a good minute before she noticed him.
Emelia looked up and towering above her was a Netreptan ranger, his feathers catching the moonlight. The girl gasped as the Netreptan held out its hand and she took it and stood. Its palm was soft, strong and cool to the touch. The Netreptan looked into her eyes with its own dark ones, the metallic disc of the Eerian moon giving the appearance of a white pupil in the twin points of night before her.
The Netreptan stroked her tangled hair from her forehead and then it spoke. Emelia would never forget the first time she had heard a Netreptan voice. The voice was like a thousand birdsongs merged into one melodic sound; a dawn chorus in one syllable.
“Girl of the star eyes, your fear is now retreated. I am Hirk of the Jelez Arc and you are under my wings now until your safe returning.”
Emelia nodded in awe at the alien beauty, a feeling of well-being enveloping her.
“Thank you, umm...Hirk. I’m, I’m a servant. I am so, so sorry. I need to go. To go home.”
Hirk nodded then shrugged. “You are a human girl of great beauty, inside and out. Servitude means little to my people. Torik judges your heart on its weight of good not the weight of another man’s gold that paid for it. Your home is far away in the golden sands not in the craggy peaks of this city so removed even from its own people.”
Emelia looked stunned at how this birdman could know such things of her when she heard a familiar voice.
“Hirk, have you found that blasted girl?”
It was Captain Ris, sliding and stumbling on the pebbles of the riverbank as he walked towards them with four men. His expression was not one of great joy and Emelia’s back twitched at the thought of the caning she would be getting on her safe return to the Keep.
Hirk leant forward one last time and spoke in a low voice. “Your gifts come at a price, one I shall call Star eyes. Yet even the heaviest burdens become bearable when their value is great. Flee the coup when the time is right—they cannot clip your wings in this blinkered city.”
A hundred questions came to her lips but it was too late. Ris grabbed her arm in fury and dragged her from the water’s edge. For an instant Emelia feared he was about to slap her but she caught a glimmer of pity softening his glare.
Hirk spread his wings and soared into the sky as the five soldiers accompanied Emelia up the river bank, the sound of the Falls in the distance. Unseen to all, the black-cloaked mage observed from the shadows of a roof top and, scowling, he slipped into the inky blackness and was gone.
Chapter 5 The Lamb
Windstide 1920
Words of death whispered in her ears as the cadaverous hands tightened around her throat. Emelia struggled as the hands scratched and clawed, pulling her down into the stifling dampness of the grave. Soil was tipping into her mouth, filling her lungs, choking and suffocating as the grave edge collapsed onto her. Blessed Torik, she was being buried alive, the desiccated corpses crammed for all eternity by her side.
Emebaka, where are you?
Emelia jolted awake, legs flailing out into the dormitory. Her sheets were soaked and wrapped like a shroud around her upper body. For a moment she thought she had wet the bed sheets, like that night those years before.
No, it’s sweat, she rationalised, as she began to shiver. It wracked her body in uncontrollable waves and, biting her lip, she clambered out of bed. The room was black; there was no moonlight shining through the window. A dark cloud had rolled in at dusk and Mother had spoke of a storm brewing.
Emelia’s mouth was arid and her head pounded with dull throbs. Whereas most of her body was cold, her back was still red-hot from the welts of the birch. By Torik, she needed a drink.
The water in the bowl was frozen. She poked it to try break the ice but her nail just scraped off the top. A chink of light infiltrated under the door from the kitchen. She moved towards the thin amber strip then hesitated. Had she just seen a motion at the window?
Heart thumping, she turned. A pale face peered through the glass.
Emelia staggered back, almost knocking the bowl off the table. He’s come for me. He’s come to kill me, to drink of my soul—because of what I saw.
A loud snore from Sandila jolted her from her panic and she looked back at the window. There was nothing there save the reflection of the scanty light from under the door.
She was desperate for a drink now, her throat felt raw and she could still sense the choking hands from the dream. Emelia eased the door from the dormitory to the kitchen open and slipped through.
The kitchen was rich in shadows, the only light source in the absence of moonlight being a solitary lantern. The wide tables and cupboards were lent a sinister appearance by the half-light. The pans and pots, hung from the walls, reflected the scanty glow like the eyes in the forest at night.
Emelia scampered across the kitchen to the water barrel, praying it wasn’t frozen. She dipped a dented beaker into the water and drank deeply.
A shadow fell across the water.
Emelia span in panic. Two figures stood before her, the dull lantern light
illuminating their glistening viscera. Flesh hung like an old rag from their greasy skulls. They wore the uniforms of the city guard.
“You killed us,” they moaned in unison.
The beaker hit the stone floor with a sharp clatter as Emelia stumbled back. Torik help me, he is in here with me.
“Emelia...”
The voice was in her ear, the breath as dank as a tomb. She whirled, hand scrabbling for a knife on the table by the barrel.
A visage as white as chalk, eyes as black as opal. She raised the knife.
“Emelia, what are you doing?”
A strong hand gripped her wrist and with a gasp she saw it was Torm in front of her. Her arm began shaking and Torm eased the knife from her grasp.
The two stood in silence for several minutes, whilst the tremors subsided.
“What in the Pale is going on, Emelia?” Torm asked finally.
“Nothing. It’s just a bad dream—everything here is just a bad dream.”
Torm nodded and touched her arm gently; his touch was burning hot on her cold skin. “Was it something that happened in the lower city, when you ran away? I’ve been worried about you.”
Emelia shrugged and looked away, ashamed of her tears. Torm had been the only one who had made an effort to talk to her since her caning.
“Why in the Pale did you come back?” Torm asked. “If I’d have got away I’d be half way to the ocean by now.”
“It’s safe, that’s why.”
“Safe? From what?”
“It doesn’t matter Torm. I’m...I’m sorry. Get to sleep before someone gets the wrong idea.”
“I couldn’t care what anyone thinks in here,” Torm said petulantly. “You’re pretty much my only friend anyway.”
Emelia smiled and stroked his cheek. A trace of fluff had begun to grow on his cheek. He placed his rough hand on hers. She quickly turned and scampered back across the kitchen and into the dormitory, her mind in turmoil.
Dreams of Darkness Rising Page 9
