Lord Ebon-Farr had generously allowed the service to be held in the tiny shrine that served the garrison. It was a dank and musty place, tucked away at the rear of the building. Its solitary window opened out through the sheer back wall of the Keep. The wall fell precipitously away to the foot of the mountain, thousands of feet below.
What would it be like to leap through the window and fall almost without end? Emelia thought. It was a macabre notion, given the nature of her friend’s demise.
The priests of Torik had not matched Lord Ebon-Farr’s kindness. The acolyte who normally preached within the shrine had refused to give the service. He regarded it as sinful that the deceased was both with child and had undoubtedly taken her own life whilst wracked with shame. It was fair to say that this was the general consensus of opinion, as difficult as it was for the other housemaids to believe of their friend—a friend who had lit up their daily lives like a beacon.
Emelia’s eyes were dry as she gazed across the small shrine, crammed shoulder to shoulder with the other girls. Her tears had gone, dried in a near constant flow of grief. Now all that was left was an anger and a fury that simmered and throbbed within her at the injustice of all of this.
The elderly attendant of Torik droned words of prayer at the far end of the shrine. His face was like an old boot, worn leathery skin stretched tight with a shock of grey hair. Emelia knew that he was normally responsible for cleaning the shrine and maintaining the candles and brazier for the acolyte. Mother Gresham had clearly offered him some recompense for his ‘sermon’, dismayed that a proper priest wasn’t amenable. He stumbled over his words like a nervous suitor but no-one really cared. All were relieved that someone was simply saying them.
In addition to the snuffling servants were Mother Gresham, two cooks and two of the soldiers, their stoical faces betraying occasional flickers of emotion. Captain Ris was also there and Emelia still struggled to meet his eyes. Torm stood in the corner, seeking solace in the shadows. By Emelia’s side was Abila, their prior frostiness having thawed in the heat of their grief.
It was grief like none she had ever known. Emelia considered she had had some experience of loss in her fifteen years of life. She had endured the ache of separation from her childhood home, albeit a ramshackle shack on the edge of a beach. She had a sense that her servitude had lost her what a childhood should have been: full of love and fun and the warmth of a father’s smile or a mother’s hug. She considered she had lost free will as now her only real freedom was that of her imagination and her dreams. Yet in retrospect she was deluded, for true loss, true sorrow, was an ache more terrible than she realised could happen. It was the ache of what would never be, the ache of all the “if only”, the ache of the “should have.”
The first night, when she’d finally forced the image of Sandila’s broken body from her mind she had fantasised, as was her want, about how she might have changed things. Perhaps if she had kept Sandila talking that hour longer, perhaps if she’d not run in panic that day in the lower city and gone with Sandy to the wise woman then her friend would never have come up to the Great Hall to talk that morning. She replayed the scenario in her mind a dozen times and in all the day-dreaming Sandila was alive and laughing at the end.
Her eye caught Torm’s gaze. He smiled slightly and then looked towards the shrouded shape that was Sandila. Emelia stared at the amorphous form, a white sheet covering the broken body; the husk that her departing spirit had left. She had heard from Abila that Mother Gresham had bullied and begged enough coins to pay for Sandila to be interned in a mass grave in one of the lower city cemeteries, a great boon for a foreign girl in servitude. Coonorians buried their dead in deep holes hewn into the rock and only the rich had the luxury of privacy in their final resting place. Abila had been confused at Emelia’s lack of joy at this news, interpreting it as distorted grief rather than Emelia’s memory of her last trip to a cemetery.
Emelia’s ruminations about her imminent move to the Enclave and her ever-present fear of the dark sorcerer had been suppressed by the tide of grief. Sandila had loved life so very much and a fire was smouldering inside Emelia now: a passion to live, a burgeoning desire to experience something beyond the stifling chambers of Coonor.
The ceremony was drawing to a close now and as was the custom the attendant was lighting the spirit lamp. It consisted of a small candle held by a wire frame to a large paper lantern, in this instance decorated by Gelia and Annre. The attendant gestured to Emelia and she stepped forward and took the lamp. He then turned, walked to the window and flung it open, the breeze making the candles flicker.
“Thus we guide your spirit to the eight winds of Gracious Torik,” the attendant said. “Lord of the air, Master of the great breeze and Father of the storm we pray to thee to lift the essence of this poor girl, taken too soon in our mind yet never too soon for your great realm. Torik, Air Father, hear our prayers.”
Emelia leaned from the window and the early morning air sent her dress billowing. The icy wind finally elicited tears. She released the spirit lamp and it flew from her grasp and soared into the sky, its light flickering as it took Sandila’s soul to the peace of the heavens.
The room was silent for a minute before Mother Gresham began rounding up all the girls and sending them back to work, clucking how even in death Sandila could instil laziness all around. Emelia did not miss the thickness in her voice as she gruffly bossed the maids about.
Emelia stared out of the small window, the panoramic view like a majestic tapestry before her. She would give anything just for a month to walk to that horizon and back rather than around in this rock pool of Coonor. That last conversation with Sandila still played in her head. Her time was running short before she left for the Enclave. It would be tomorrow morning and all this would be a bitter memory fading like the tapestries in the upper corridors.
Run away, Emelia, let us run away, Emebaka urged.
How will I live if I were to escape Coonor? And that’s even if I could evade the black sorcerer.
Are you a lamb to the cull like your poor friend or are you a mighty eagle, your wings beating against the winds of change? Are you to live in this half-life, scared by the shadows? the dry voice answered.
Her temper flared at this insult. It is not that simple, Emebaka. I am no warrior, no princess of fairy tales and no sorceress to have talent to battle against the fate the Gods have decided for me. I am a maid, a servant, illiterate and worthless, a commodity to be bartered and sold, given for a favour and used until I am of age. And then what? Abila told me straight—there is no chance of me leaving this city to find my parents. And why would I? Do I really want to put myself and my family through the pain of reunion, even if they were alive? If I am truthful to myself do I want to ask my father if things were really so dire that he had no choice but to sell his daughter into servitude in a land a thousand miles away?
How wrong you are, Emebaka replied, the truth sits on the edge of your mind like an itch that cannot be scratched. The birdman knew when he looked in your glittering eyes that you are meant for greater things than this. The Gods put you by the door that day for you to listen, they guided you into the cemetery that night and they put you behind that tapestry to learn the truths of this place. Beneath the façade of nobility is a rotten core; behind the masque is a face that is vile.
A shudder of expectation juddered through her body and a sudden sense of inevitability pervaded her. It was as if all her self consciousness, that sense of being a stranger in her own flesh, of being a girl in a woman’s body, fluttered away in the wind. It drifted upwards, carried with the spirit of her dead friend in that glowing lamp. Emebaka was correct; she knew what she needed to do.
She had to confront Uthor.
***
Torm was waiting for her as she left the shrine. He hugged himself as she approached. His face carried a fresh bruise, purple and angry.
“Good of you to come along, Torm,” Emelia said.
“Least I can
do,” Torm said. “It saves me an hour of slaps from him upstairs. He had a dark mood on him, what with the move to the Citadel being so close.”
“Still, I’m sure Sandy would have appreciated it.”
“Right. I never got much chance to know her. Some of the other lads were very fond of her I heard.”
Emelia laughed, tears stinging her eyes.
“Sorry – I didn’t mean to…”
“No. It’s not that. It’s just – well, it’s a difficult thing…”
“It always is. You were the last to see her. What did she say? I mean, did she hint at what she was going to do?”
“No. No, it wasn’t like that. She said she had something to put to rest”
“To what? To ‘put to rest’? What in the four moons does that mean?”
Emelia rubbed her forehead in discomfort.
“I – I’m not certain Torm. She went off and then, then he…”
“He? Who are you talking about? Was someone else there? What is it you know Emelia?”
Pain was throbbing in the rear of Emelia’s head. She wanted so much to tell Torm, but his knowing would put him in danger.
Torm was blocking her way back to the kitchens, trying to meet her gaze. Realisation spread across his face. “Asha’s tears—she didn’t kill herself did she?”
The lie congealed on her lips; she couldn’t deceive him.
“No.”
“Oh....sweet Asha,” Torm said, his face a ghastly hue. “She was...murdered.”
“Yes, I think so,” Emelia said, her arms shaking. “After she fell, I heard...him...”
”Him?”
“Uthor...I heard Uthor.”
For an awful second Emelia thought Torm was going to faint such was his pallor. He gripped the smooth stone of the wall; his knuckles were white.
“Uthor,” he said, like saying the name slowly would exorcise the evil of his master from the Keep. “Curse him.”
“Torm, calm down.”
“How can I? Is it not enough that he treats me like the filth on his boot? He murdered Sandila.”
“Keep your voice low, for Torik’s sake. Look we can’t do anything about this. No-one will believe us.”
“His face carries the evidence. The scratches, I saw them. I wondered how he’d got them.”
“Look we need to slow down. Think some more before we say anything, before we consider confronting him.”
“Think? Well, you ponder it, Emelia. Have one of your little daydreams about it. In the meantime I’ll sort things out with a little justice.”
Torm held out his hand and in his palm sat a small sharp knife. A trickle of fear ran through Emelia’s chest. Her head was thumping now.
“Torik save me! You’ll be thrown in prison for even carrying that near the Ebon-Farrs,” Emelia said. “Your life will be finished.”
“And what life is this that we have now? What life for a child of the sea? We simply exist, entombed in this ancient fortress. We count down the days to the end of our service knowing almost all of us will end up trapped in another menial role in another noble house of arrogance. You feel the same as I do – I saw it within you on that day you ran off.”
“I didn’t run off. It’s complicated.”
“Well this is simple. It’s the only message he’ll understand. And when I stick this in his belly I’ll be sure to whisper Sandila’s name in his ear.”
Torm pushed past Emelia and stormed down the corridor. Emelia sprinted after him, grabbing at his shoulder.
“Just wait, Torm. This is madness.”
“Well you’re the authority on that or so they say.”
Emelia stumbled to a halt as Torm pushed through a door into the kitchens. Torm’s words were like a slap across the face. She had thought he was one who understood her; the one who had given her the benefit of the doubt when all others shunned her. A void of despair was expanding within her breast. Her head was agony.
“Damn it. Wait,” she said.
A wave of dizziness came over her and she clung onto the doorframe. A clatter of pots hitting the floor rang out from the kitchens and she heard Torm cry out. She entered the kitchen, battling through nausea.
Several angry cooks were pulling Torm loose from under a half dozen pots. His ankle was swelling rapidly over the edge of his boot. Emelia saw the knife on the floor and swiftly kicked it away under a table.
Torm’s eyes met hers as the cooks hoisted him free. His eyes displayed only confusion.
You did tell him to wait, Emebaka commented, to which Emelia had no reply.
***
The funeral procession wound like a black snake through the Thetorian town of Eviksburg. It paused periodically to increase its size as mourners wandered from their crooked houses.
From the vantage point of the hills that lay to the north of the town, Aldred Enfarson could make out that the procession numbered at least four dozen. It wasn’t a bad turn-out for the town’s eldest baker, Aldred thought. He would have been happy if he managed half that number.
Daily life still bustled away down in Eviksburg, albeit with due respect for the loss of one its great grandfathers. The bells of the two churches sang their lament. The birds atop the statue of Mortis, the Father of All, matched the peals with their incessant twitter.
Aldred’s sighed as he turned to his riding companion, Livor Korianson. Livor was an enthusiastic fifteen year old like Aldred and eldest son to one of Aldred’s father’s principal lords.
“Still struggling with the funerals, Aldred?” Livor asked. He was chewing on a handful of dried fruit whilst his horse lapped at the water in a small pool.
“That’s fair to say, Livor. If I’d known it was old Eli’s send-off then I’d have suggested we ride south to chase the maidens in Oldston.”
Livor patted Aldred’s shoulder and then nodded towards the north where clouds the shade of tempered steel were gathering.
“We could retrace our trail back over Evik’s Moor and with luck we could be back to Blackstone by early afternoon.”
“What says that of our initiative?” Aldred asked. “I feel like a bit of excitement to lift my spirits from the pall of Eli’s funeral. What say we hop the brook and ride over the crest of the hills and then down past the old fort?”
Livor laughed nervously. “Come on, Aldred, that’s a fair leap on these horses. I don’t want to be explaining to the baron about a lame drowned gelding, especially with his moods at the moment. Besides that, my father would flay me senseless for upsetting your old man.”
Aldred frowned and then grinned. He dug in his stirrups, turned his horse and galloped at the foaming brook. The horse began to shy so he jabbed the metal into its sides and reined it tight, guiding it towards the water.
For a second he thought he had misjudged it and that the slick rocks would dash his head open. A buzz of excitement tingled in his chest as he vaulted the stream and his horse’s hoofs clattered on the far bank.
He turned and yelled to Livor. “Nekra take my father’s moods. It’s time he realised life is for living. Come on, vault the brook, Engin is with us this day.”
His companion’s eyes darted from the brook to Aldred and back. Aldred smiled—Livor dressed like a noble Thetorian in his crisp white shirt and stylish leather trousers, yet he did not act like one. True Thetorians were men of passion and impulse, men who would hang the consequences and act.
“I’m afraid that my riding is not on a par with yours, Aldred,” Livor said. “It would appear that I should retrace my steps and catch you up near Unger’s Common.”
Aldred shrugged, waved and then cantered away along the rocky crest of the hills. In truth, he was glad for some time alone. Livor’s common sense and wisdom far exceeded his years; Aldred begrudgingly admitted to himself that his friend was correct about his discomfort with funerals.
It had been fourteen months ago that his mother had died. A wasting sickness had taken her slowly over a five-month period. That summer he had rushed thr
ough every lesson, every sword practice and every scroll he had to scribe, just to attend her chambers for another precious minute. With every sunny day that passed she seemed to diminish. The colour of her warm cheeks became more and more like the rocks of the hills that surrounded the barony. Whilst he sat there holding her frail hand, his pride damming his tears, he willed the summer to last forever; he knew that as the golden days shortened so his mother’s life would to.
But Harvestide had arrived and she had departed, her soul rising like the dust from the reaped corn in the fields. She had left him to rest with Mortis, the Father, God of Light. The funeral procession had journeyed the fifteen miles from Eviksburg to Blackstone Castle to pay their respects. They had descended into the gloomy crypts and Aldred had watched as a part of his father, the baron, left with his mother.
Livor had also not been mistaken about Aldred’s father’s moods and temper. The baron had always been a harsh man, cast from the same iron that his subjects mined from the northern hills of his land.
Yet since his wife’s death he had become a feared master, prone to outbursts and the servants scampered like dogs before his rage. Lord Korianson had sought to occupy Baron Enfarson with forages into the hills at the west of the barony. They would travel from there into the South Khullian Mountains, Korianson evidently hoping that the exertion of killing goblins would distract him from his excess of black bile. Even that had proven futile, though they returned with armour stained with green blood and saddlebags brimming with treasures.
Aldred guided his horse Greymane down a pebbled track which descended towards fields that ran to the western edge of the hills. About a quarter of a mile ahead were the ruins of an old fort, its aged stones jutting like the ribs of some ancient dragon skeleton. He slipped off his mount and tied the reins to a crooked tree that leant against the wall of the fort.
The fort would once have been sizeable, agreeably not on the scale of Blackstone Castle, yet imposing enough. Long grass and brambles had worked their way through every gap. Aldred clambered across the mossy stones, pausing to consider the fort’s layout. If he remembered his history lessons correctly then this would have been the outer wall: a strong two-layered barrier, built with the precise geometry of the Imperial engineers.
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