by Will Elliott
She couldn’t understand it. ‘But, all the wars …’
‘Never mind those! People must be managed; herds must sometimes be culled. The world had to be kept busy while the Arch Mage did his work and created a new Spirit. His own armies and ours, for what if they turned their attention inwards instead of at some outside threat? Men feel they need to fight. So we let them, as long as they do not fight us. That’s all, Lalie.’
How could the whole war have been orchestrated? It was impossible. Such a thing was too big and chaotic to truly control. She refused to believe it. ‘Do you mean that your city … and all the cities who fight with each other … are really friends?’
‘Friends,’ he said contemplatively, settling back on the bed beside her. He ran a finger over the chains holding her wrists as though they were a sensual part of her. Over in the corner, the other man’s mechanical fucking went on and on, his body like a machine someone had forgotten to switch off. ‘Think of it, Lalie, as a game we mayors and lords all play. It is a serious game, of course. When the army of my city battles another, I wish earnestly for victory. I am proud when we win; I am upset when we lose. But ever I remain here, in Yincastle, safe and comfortable, managing Yinfel’s people. We Free Cities were earnest in our game against the castle for a long while. But all along we understood it was indeed a game. Fighting men do not see it that way. We cannot let them. If they did, they would not fight and die as they do, all to be just minor pieces on a board.
‘Avridis – the Arch Mage – is someone I partly admire. He has always played the game differently. He was just an apprentice wizard, not born into any of the ruling families, and so not invited to play our game at all. But through his talents in magic he fought his way to a place at the table with the rest of us. For a long while, he played as a winner – a better player in fact than many of us. His part may be over now, but he has surprised us before. We shall see.
‘Lalie, the only real rule of the game is that we, the game’s players, are to remain high-placed no matter what else happens. At the very least kept in honour and comfort, away from the toiling rabble. It is a rule usually adhered to, but not always. Some mayors are foolish. Now and then – even for a decade or two – fools of one city or other get a place of power, fools who don’t understand the game. They would, if they could, change the rules altogether. Tauk the Strong of Tanton is one such fool. Liha of Faifen is another of them. She is probably dead now, when she could be enjoying life as I do. Earnest people, admirable in their way, but limited by silly ideas. Foolish.’ He sighed.
Lalie curled up beside him, no longer sure what to believe. ‘Ilgresi? His city fell. Did you …’
Izven laughed, each ha so controlled it was practically spoken. ‘Ilgresi the Blind is no fool. We are distant cousins, he and I. He is now in Tsith. He knew very well Elvury would fall. He helped. He made a deal with Avridis. Do you really think, Lalie, that such a wealthy city’s inner workings could have been so rotted through without its ruler knowing? He was surprised only by the timing of it – we all were. It happened a few days early. Those horrid creatures are as difficult to control in large numbers as they are to kill. Few things go to plan perfectly. It did not matter, our “dramatic escape” looked good for the generals.’
‘You knew Elvury would fall?’
‘All of us knew but Tauk and Liha. We lingered in that city only because of this unexpected business with the Pilgrims.’
Lalie nodded. The mayor had quizzed her repeatedly about Eric and Case, not seeming to mind that he got the same answers each time.
Izven’s drink arrived in a small glass, and he gulped it down in one swallow. It made his face flush and pupils dilate. He dismissed the servant with a gesture like flicking away an insect. ‘You have more questions. Ask, Lalie.’
‘Are you friends with the Arch?’
‘Friends is a peculiar word. It is all a dance, Lalie, every action, every word. Some of the dance’s moves are courteous and graceful, even seductive. Other moves are swift and brutal as a cudgel’s blow. We dance about each other all the while, Lalie.’ To her astonishment, a tear came to Izven’s eye. It slid down his cheek. She understood a moment later it was just an effect of the drink he’d consumed. He said, ‘If I told you the Arch Mage would come to visit us, would you be surprised, Lalie?’ Verily, she was speechless. ‘Ah, but not quite him,’ said the mayor. ‘A Strategist comes, Lalie. Vashun is his name. I have expected him a while, but he is late. It does not matter, does it? For we may find ways to pass the time as we wait.’
He surprised her with the suddenness with which he pinned her body beneath his, his hands about her throat, squeezing air out of her while his pale soft body pressed down, entering her with violence he’d not before given a hint of. Lalie gasped for air as his hands now and then eased to let her draw a partial breath. A distant part of her rebelled against being used this way: I am one of Inferno’s chosen, she thought; I am she He spared from the hall of death! I am for Him, not you!
Then as if in response, Izven’s words echoed again: A noble, misunderstood Spirit, Lalie. Do you feel he will awaken in our lifetimes? I feel he may …
A smile spread across her face in spite of her lack of breathing air. She could not be certain, but she believed she understood what the mayor had meant.
There was no knowing how much time had passed since she’d blacked out. A group of men surrounded Lalie’s bed in quiet conversation. One of them was far taller and thinner than the others. His clothes glowed with shifting colours. His voice was a rasp filled with ugly humour: ‘We have learned that even entities as great as dragons can and do … miscalculate, shall we say.’ There was wheezing laughter. ‘So this is the girl, yes, yes. How much is it that she knows of their practices?’
Izven said, ‘Much, Strategist. All the common rituals, all the waking ones. Many Offerings too, though of course …’
‘We need not trouble with that.’ The tall thin one dismissed the others with a nod. They went and browsed like folk at market through the other chained women and girls. The Strategist reached out a long finger, so white and thin Lalie thought it was bone. It touched her belly, sending a ripple of cold through her. ‘The waking rites may be useful. There is less to it all than one might think, Izven. Especially in this case. The Spirit’s personality already lives. It is only diminished. It is difficult to explain the science.’
Stiff and wooden, the Strategist leaned over Lalie’s body. His rustling voice seemed to savour itself, broken here and there with wheezing gasps. ‘Being human at first, Vous was … difficult. A fire is a misleading but … sufficient analogy. With Inferno we need but pour fuel upon it to reawaken it. There is no need for the long process we had. To attract and build that initial … spark.’ Vashun touched Lalie again, though no cold ran through her this time.
She swatted feebly at his hand.
Surprised to find her awake, Vashun wheezed laughter. He said, ‘Rest, little one. A long trip is before us, but I am sure you will … enjoy … its destination. Think of it as the final stretch of a journey you long ago set out upon.’ He twisted a long thin hand, questing for words. ‘The less pleasant scenery is behind you now. Ah, but all our journeys have such, for a stretch. A little trial is needed, here and there. To sort the … devoted, from those who merely … posture.’
Not knowing what he meant, Lalie bared her teeth. Vashun stepped back a pace, smiling as if pushed by a blast of pleasant warmth. He breathed deeply. ‘Ah, mm! You would ask, had you speech, where it is that we go? To the Ash Sea, little one, to the Ash Sea. There is someone there we must, ahh … awaken.’
Lalie gasped. A wave of chills rippled through her as understanding struck. She clung tightly to this part of the dream, cherishing its warmth, hoping more than anything else that she would awaken to find it real. By night, to the clopping hooves of the steeds that drew the wagon, she did so.
4
IN THE SKIES
What Eric had taken to be a city was no more
than a cluster of stone monoliths, menhirs and upright slabs fashioned not unlike large gravestones, all made of the same basalt grey skystone of the cavern’s walls, roof and floor. Although Vyin had called it an Invia roost, no Invia were about. Some white feathers littered the floor between the thirty or so stone pieces, some of which – like the bulbous trunk they presently hid behind – had been made in imitation of trees, with delicate stone lattice leaves fanning from trunks either squat and round, or tall and lordly. Many pieces were broken, smashed upon the ground, partly dissolved by time to dust. There seemed little order to the roost … it was as if the structures were placed with the randomness of tossed stones, or pieces left upon the board of an unfinished game.
They were too far now from Shâ to see whether or not any war mages still lived for the dragon to torment. They could faintly make out the dragon’s huge silhouette, with just glimpses of its poison colours. It remained perfectly still for stretches of time, then trampled into motion. It was unreal to see something so huge move with such nimbleness.
Eric had never been so winded and exhausted as when they finally came to rest after their sprint to the roost, nor had he ever known such terror. Nor had Aziel, judging by her shivering and quiet weeping. He tried to understand the fear the great dragon had given him, but he could not. His death had seemed just as likely, or more so, when he’d gone through the door and lay clutching his briefcase in the corpse-strewn field while a war mage murdered nearby. And death had seemed just as likely before he and Case had been rescued from a Tormentor in the woods, or when they’d stumbled into groundman traps, and several other times besides. This time, though, the fear had gone beyond such a trivial concern as whether he lived or died. He did not know how that could be so.
‘Aziel,’ he whispered. ‘That … thing. It wants to be free from here, do you understand? It wants to live among us, among people. I don’t know what role we play in all this, or why we’ve been brought up here. But we can’t let that happen.’
She didn’t answer but he’d come to read the looks of her face. It was still his fault, he knew, that they were here at all. Well, maybe she was right – he’d wagered his life in the tower, when the tall, bald-headed wizard he’d never met before had advised him to fly to the castle. Now he almost heard Aziel thinking: Arch would know what to do. He’d know far better than you would.
Then Loup’s voice was loud in his mind: Shut your flapping gums, you stew-brained bastard. Think them dragons don’t have ears? Don’t go speaking your mind aloud! One of the great beasts possessed Aziel not long back. It may be in her right now, for all you and I know, listening to your every word …
They watched the dragon’s huge silhouette a while longer, the air still heavy with its presence even at this distance. They began to wonder if it would ever leave. At last its wings spread, beat the air and with apparent difficulty bore it aloft. For a horrible moment it wheeled in their direction, but instead turned a full circle on its way to a gap in the ceiling. At last it was gone from sight.
They looked at each other to confirm it had really gone. Then they laughed with relief. Joy and a sense of renewed freedom flushed wildly through them both. Aziel clutched him and drenched his shirt in tears. He stroked her hair till they both slept in the soft dust.
When his eyes opened the Invia roost was bathed in softly flickering white light.
There was peculiar quiet in the vast cavern, with no notes being played by wind through the roof tunnels. Instead there was the occasional sound from far away of stone creaking like the timbers of a boat at sea. The lone voice of an Invia called out softly somewhere in the gloom, as if not wishing to wake the dragon prison’s two human guests. Eric coughed from breathing the cavern floor’s dust, the sound an echo of Ventolin inhalers and doctor visits a world and a lifetime ago. That old plain world was now too alien to have ever been real.
The flickering light about the Invia roost seemed to have shut the rest of the cavern off in darkness, as if a kind of night had come to its vastness. His sight did not reach beyond the roost perimeter. Far afield, the other Invia roost was a small glowing thing on the horizon.
Aziel lay on her back in the soft dust, her lips parted and brow furrowed, one arm flung off to the side with its palm up, the other on her chest. Her breath disturbed the dust near her mouth. He smoothed away a strand of hair which had fallen across her face. Her necklace seemed for now little more than a piece of plain metal, but when he ran a finger on it coldness pulsed from it like turgid heartbeats. It appeared to hang loose on her, giving the false impression that it could be removed. He swept the dust away from her mouth with both palms so she would not breathe it in, his hands making a faint sssss sound across the stone.
In the gloom outside their roost it seemed the sound was echoed, magnified: sssss. Something quite large slid over the floor out there, moving closer. Eric took the gun from its shoulder holster with one hand, keeping the other on Aziel’s necklace. The gloom beyond the roost hid perfectly whatever was out there.
The sound of beating wings above made him jump. A lone Invia took her place upon the thin stone ledge stretched between two nearby pillars. She had scarlet hair and did not look at him beyond one indifferent glance. Nor did the two other Invia who fluttered down from the dark overhead and joined her. They sat further afield on the stone branches of something tall and tree-shaped. All three closed their jewel-bright eyes.
The sound outside came again, closer: sssss, without doubt something sliding across the stone. He thought he saw a patch of rippling darkness move sideways. There was the faint glint of a single gem briefly unclasped in the dark. Something’s eye. He pointed the gun at it. A voice gave a faint exclamation. Amusement? Then silence.
When he looked about again there were two more Invia in the roost. They’d come silently. Both now looked beyond him into the dark, at whatever crept around out there. ‘Who’s there?’ Eric asked quietly, taking a step beyond the pillar. He felt no fear. After seeing Shâ, he doubted much else in the world could scare him.
It was half a minute’s silence before something quietly answered: ‘Do you invite me nearer, Favoured one?’
‘I am in your home,’ he said. He was sure that he spoke now with a dragon, for its voice was nothing like the speech of Invia. ‘Is it my right to invite you nearer, if I am in your home?’
‘This is not my home.’
‘Aren’t you a dragon?’
‘A home is a place one chooses. Is it not? Otherwise it must be called a prison.’
‘To me, your whole world is a prison. I can’t go back where I came from.’
‘Did you choose to come to this world?’
Again the familiar memory replayed: Eric jumping head-first through the door. ‘I don’t know any more if I chose to. There are illusions and there’s magic, things which can force a person to choose the wrong thing. All I know is I can’t leave.’
‘My home is where light glints off melting glaciers, where the great ones beat shapes in the land and tossed their thoughts into the air as threads of wild colour. All for men to toy with ages after, it would seem. May I come near? I wish to see the sleeping one from closer. I shan’t wake her. She is beautiful, in her way.’
‘I can’t stop you.’
‘You can with but a word.’
‘In that case, no. You may not come closer.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know who or what you are.’
‘I shall reveal it.’ There were sounds in the gloom he could not decipher. It was like something made of cloth and metal being folded, flesh rubbing against flesh. A faint waft of heat came and went, and stepping into the roost’s flickering light he saw a woman with long curled hair like a black vine down her shoulders. She wore leather garb reminding him vaguely of Siel’s clothes, though this version was what the queen of a forest tribe might wear, leaving bare her arms, flat navel and much of her thighs. ‘Have you a name, Favoured one?’ she said.
‘Eric. Do you
?’
‘Shilen, call me that.’
‘Are you an Invia?’
‘Do I seem to be one?’
‘No.’
‘What do I seem?’
‘Well, you seem to be a woman. I thought you were a dragon. If you’re a woman, why are you here? I’ve heard no people ever come here.’
‘Some do, but not many.’
‘Are you a “Favoured one” too?’
‘I dwell here. For I am not of the lands beneath, and I have my own arrangements with the brood. At times I speak for them. You are known, Pilgrim. You are now deemed the foremost, the firstborn among the Favoured, just as Vyin is said to be firstborn of the brood. A spell shall be laid upon you while you are here. It will be for you to choose the others of your kind, those who are Favoured. There shall not be a great many chosen. A hundred, or a thousand. Maybe more. Maybe fewer.’
‘Let me get this straight. The dragons will be free. And I decide which people are Favoured.’
‘Yes.’
He became aware the gun was still in his hand. He put it back in its holster. ‘I won’t ask why this duty falls on me, because I’ve learned that asking why is never, ever helpful. What happens to those I don’t choose?’
Her laugh shook and sprung the glossy curls about her shoulders. ‘What concerns you about them? They will go as their choices take them. They may hide in their grooves and ruts. Let them cross World’s End and live among those who dwell there. Or make more war among themselves, as they seem to prefer. May I see your friend? She who lies sleeping nearby?’
Eric turned to Aziel and saw yet more Invia had come in silence to perch upon the tops of pillars and stone trees. Shilen strode between the pillars and crouched by Aziel, the leather skirt falling back from one thigh. Her smile bloomed as if she saw a fine joke hidden in Aziel’s sleeping face. Shilen’s eyes gleamed up at him and he saw that her eyes were slitted. Or perhaps it had been a trick of the light, for now they were normal again. She said, ‘Do you like her hair better than mine?’
