Unbound

by Shawn Speakman

  She returned to the upper levels after the confrontation with Dralgen, resisting the impulse to hack Harazil’s head from his shoulders when he had the gall to question her decision to spare the mage.

  “Greatness?” he said, eyes wide in his colourless face as she stepped back, sheathing the scimitar.

  “Secure him close by,” she repeated in a faint whisper, meeting the Shar-gur’s eyes. It had been enough to see him stumbling to his knees babbling abject contrition, but still . . . He questioned me.

  She sat in the Silver King’s library, a scattering of books littering the floor. She had hunted through the shelves for a time, seeking some mention of the Diamond Queen, finding much in the way of history and legend but nothing useful. She could see the entrance to her rooms through the open door, the same sense of invitation rising every time she glanced towards it. Come in . . . come in and see . . .

  For the first time in many a year she felt a chill. She was clad in only the black silks she wore beneath her armour, having discarded it on returning to the spire. Normally she had little regard for the vagaries of climate, it made scant difference amid the constant ache of her invisible-but-present scars, but tonight she felt it, an icy cut straight to the bone that made her rise and seek out the king’s bedchamber. She dragged a blanket from his bed and draped it about her shoulders before returning to her vigil in the library, sitting in clenched immobility until the chill abated and a soothing warmth spread through her, allowing her mind to wander.

  As ever the Black Vale was the first image conjured from her memory, the mountain holdfast where the Voice built his army and raised a girl to Greatness. Her earliest memory was of the day a Shar-gur had placed the amulet about her neck. She had no clear notion of how old she had been but guessed she couldn’t have been more than eight, just a small girl standing atop one of the obsidian tors overlooking smithies and training grounds where the Tormented laboured. She remembered her eyes had been sore and her cheeks damp but had no notion why that could be. Nor did she yet know her name.

  The Shar-gur had been named Zorakath, a mighty champion to one of the now vanished hill-tribes before he had heard the Voice a decade earlier, now risen to generalship over forty thousand Tormented. “Sharrow-met,” he had called her. Wraith-Queen in the ancient tongue.

  The Voice was her father, she understood this on some fundamental level, but Zorakath had been her teacher. She had been at his side when he led the first wave of Tormented against the eastern duchies, grown to adolescence by the time he overran the lake-lands, and gained womanhood the day she watched him die at the Battle of the Pass. The mages of the Westlands had reached a concordance by then, stirred into panicked unity by the inexorable advance of the Voice. Near a thousand had stood together at the Pass, their spells searing fire and ruin into the ranks of the Tormented. Zorakath took his blackwing in a vertical dive into the midst of the mages, wreaking havoc until their fires consumed him. Sharrow-met made ready to command Keera to follow the Shar-gur’s example, but the amulet had thrummed, the subsequent command implacable and absolute. Return to me. I have a task for you.

  And so he had sent her south, alone but for Keera and the chest of looted treasure. The memories shifted, accelerating into a blur. The duels she had fought with various pack-chiefs, spilling blood to earn the right to speak to their sisters. The vast tracks of jungle and desert, the breeding grounds where dull-eyed males tended the endless rows of eggs, and everywhere so many of these clever, wonderfully fierce creatures, willing to fight and die on promise of ever more trinkets. It took ten years, but when she returned it was at the head of an army, one no number of mages could halt.

  Come in . . . come in and see . . .

  The compulsion lurched anew and something moved beyond the half-open door to the Diamond Queen’s chambers, a flickering shadow accompanied by the faint whisper of dust sliding over faded tiles.

  Fear now, she thought. First memory, then cold, now fear. But those who hear the Voice have no need of fear.

  She rose to her feet, letting the blanket fall away, striding forward to slam the doors aside, ignoring the chill of the floor on her bare feet as she made for the hall of mirrors. “I have seen a thousand miles of horrors!” she hissed aloud. “I have seen cities burn and rivers turn red with the blood of my enemies! What do you imagine you can show me?”

  But still she paused at the entrance to the hall, her disgusting human heart thumping in her chest as her eyes played over the silent walls of glass. She realised she had left the amulet in the king’s chamber with her armour, its absence a keen ache in her breast. Truth, she reminded herself. The mage said there is truth here, and the Voice commands I seek it out.

  A sound behind her, the faintest sigh of an indrawn breath heralding another bone-cutting chill. She shuddered as the skin on her back prickled, knowing something had reached out to caress her flesh. More unheard but undeniable words, effortlessly pushed into her mind: I knew you would be beautiful. Go in, now . . . Go and see . . .

  There was little light to see by, only the faintest gleam on the edges of the mirrors, and every glass seemed like a portal pregnant with the threat of sights unwanted.

  There is only the Voice. The Voice brings great rewards and dark glory. Those who hear the Voice have no need of fear.

  She repeated the mantra several times over, drew a breath, and stepped forward, the lingering goosebumps on the back of her neck a clear indication her unseen companion had followed her through the door. She paused at the first mirror, her eyes roaming over the gilt frame, steeling herself for the sight of the porcelain-faced young woman. Instead she saw nothing. The mirror held no reflection, just a rectangle of black glass in an ornate frame. She frowned and was about to turn away when the icy caress came again, a numbing touch to her shoulder, holding her in place.

  Wait . . . It searches for you . . .

  It took a moment before she saw it, a barely perceptible glow in the centre of the glass, growing slowly until it filled the entire mirror, an opaque swirling haze that soon coalesced into a recognisable figure. The girl was small and thin, pale of face and red of eye, her lips colourless and chapped. She wore a fine dress that seemed to jar with her sickly appearance; blue silk and sequins that matched her eyes. She stood gazing into the mirror, head cocked at a curious angle and a motley rag-doll dangling from her hand. Tentatively she reached out to touch the mirror, then drew back, small face bunching in a puzzled frown.

  “Does she see me?” Sharrow-met asked in a whisper.

  A shadow only, her companion replied. A possibility . . . A twist in her future captured by the glass.

  Sharrow-met’s gaze roved the girl’s face, taking in the hollowness of her cheeks before lingering on her red-rimmed eyes. “She has a sickness.”

  From the day she was born. It happens sometimes. Those born with the power can be too fragile to contain it. But she never complained . . .

  Abruptly the girl turned from the mirror, glancing over her shoulder at a slim beckoning figure, too shadowed to make out. The girl gave the glass a final bemused glance before clutching her doll to her breast and scampering off. The mirror misted over once more, then slowly faded to black.

  “You knew her,” Sharrow-met said, finding her skin suddenly beaded with sweat despite the chill at her back. “What was her name?” Her companion said nothing, though the cold air shifted, impelling her towards the next mirror.

  This one was wider, the black glass misting, then forming into an impressive view of a garden on a summer’s day. The same little girl played in the foreground, a little older now but somehow even weaker in appearance, a certain fatigue evident in her movements as she made her doll dance. Beyond her a man and a woman stood side by side, the woman talking with great animation whilst the man stood staring fixedly out at the glittering sea in the distance. The mirror conveyed no sound but Sharrow-met knew with absolute certainty the words spoken by the woman: I sensed no lie in his promise . . .

  She rem
embered it all. The feel of the grass against her skin, the sun on her back, the scent of the orange blossoms, and the voices of her parents arguing a short way off. Raggy, she thought, sheened in sweat and limbs trembling. The doll’s name was Raggy.

  She saw the man round on the woman, a tall man of noble aspect, handsome as his wife was beautiful, made suddenly ugly by anger and fear. “Can’t you see the trap in his words?” the man had demanded in a tone she hadn’t heard before, causing her to look up from Raggy’s caperings, as the little girl in the mirror looked up now. The man leaned close to the woman and Sharrow-met found herself mouthing his next words as he spoke them: “You think he promises life? The histories are clear. All the Voice ever brings is death . . .”

  She whirled away from the mirror, eyes shut tight, gasping as the cold enveloped her, the chill cutting even deeper, making her cry out and sink to her knees. “There . . . there is o-only . . . the V-voice . . .” she stammered through misting breath. “The Voice . . . b-brings great . . . rewards and . . . and . . .”

  This was where it found me, her companion’s words invaded her mind with calm ease. In this hall, this place of power and wisdom. For this was to be my legacy, the finest collection of enchanted glass in all the world. A blessing for those who came after me, twisted into a curse. For this was how the Voice found me. Lacking form or substance, it lives in the artefacts of power; the blessed blades of great warriors, these wondrous mirrors, the jewel you wear. It came to me and whispered of wonders, of impossible reward . . . I can save her, it said, and through the glass it sent a vision of what you would be, the warrior queen, so strong, so beautiful, so much more than the sickly girl who broke my heart with her every rasping cough. He sent his Shar-gur captain on a great bird to take you, and though I knew my husband would hate me for all the ages, I gave you to the Voice. He promised one day he would return you . . . and now he has.

  “The . . . the glamour,” Sharrow-met gasped, the chill now gripping her like a vice. “You wove it!”

  My husband shunned my company from the day I gave you away, forbade my presence at all councils and formal gatherings. I spent my remaining days in these rooms. I knew by then, you see. I knew what I had done . . . One day he would send you home with fire and slaughter. So for years I sought an answer in these mirrors, rarely sleeping or eating. I suppose I became mad after a time, and when my body finally died, I barely noticed, and my labour continued.

  The icy fist closed ever tighter, squeezing the air from Sharrow-met’s body, her back convulsing into a spasmodic arch, a shout of pain filling the hall.

  Open your eyes, my daughter. The grip tightened further and Sharrow-met’s shout became a scream. Open your eyes and see!

  Her eyes flew open, stinging and streaming from the cold, and there before her stood a woman, or rather the mist of her own stolen breath formed into the shape of a woman. Sharrow-met choked, her empty lungs unable to give sound to the words she sought to speak: What is my name?

  The face of the spectre shifted, becoming more solid, the features recognisable as those of the woman in the glass, her expression sorrowful but not unkind. Her lips moved to form a silent reply, the words conveyed to Sharrow-met by other means. Mara, we named you for the city. The spectre of the Diamond Queen smiled then raised her arms, every mirror in the hall suddenly filling with bright light, banishing shadow and invading Sharrow-met’s eyes with a searing pain.

  Now, my daughter, the Diamond Queen said as Sharrow-met tried vainly to scream once more. Now it is time for you to see . . .

  * * * * *

  She had the mage brought to the top of the white marble spire in the morning, a pair of Tormented forcing him up the steps and onto the balcony where she waited. Sharrow-met noted his evident exhaustion, though his defiance remained undimmed. She turned her gaze to the city, eyes tracking over the Shar-gur gliding above on their blackwings to the Raptorile prowling the streets and parks below, crouched low as they hunted, blind to their prey.

  She could see them now, clustering together in fear, crouching in doorways, some sitting in the parks, slumped and accepting of their fate, and all surely baffled to the point of near-madness as to why the monsters who had seized their city paid them no mind at all. The people were everywhere, revealed the instant she made her way from the Diamond Queen’s chambers to the great hall below where they huddled in their hundreds, some crying out in terror as they realised she could see them, mothers clutching infants, the elderly staring with grim resolution. She had wandered the city for hours, clad only in her silks, heedless of the cold whilst the jewel about her neck throbbed constantly with the Voice’s entreaties. She lied, my Sharrow-met. You are mine. You have always been mine . . .

  “Remarkable,” she said now, gesturing for the Tormented to bring Dralgen to her side and nodding at the streets below. “Don’t you think?”

  Dralgen said nothing, wariness and puzzlement dominating his sagging features.

  “You can’t see them, can you?” she asked, reaching out to touch a finger to his head. He stiffened momentarily in pain, then blinked like a man waking from a troubled sleep. On looking down at the city, his eyes grew wide and a soft gasp of amazement escaped him.

  “Perhaps the most powerful spell ever woven,” Sharrow-met said. “Thousands of souls hidden in plain sight by nothing more than the will of a long dead woman. My mother was surely the greatest of mages.”

  “Therumin spoke of her power,” Dralgen breathed. “But this . . .”

  “Did he tell you?” she asked. “Did his people know they faced destruction at the hands of his heir?”

  He shook his head, gaze still fixed on the newly revealed populace below. “He was a greatly sorrowful man. His daughter stolen, his wife driven to madness and death in grief. Sometimes I wonder if he hungered for your coming.”

  I prayed . . . that I might never see your face again . . . “No,” she murmured. “No he did not.”

  Her hand went to the jewel resting on her breastplate, now visibly thrumming as her steel fingers closed on it. I made you, the Voice said, and for the first time she heard something new in it, something beyond the serene certainty, something more than the unfettered affection it had always shown her; a faint, fearful whine, like a petulant child caught in a lie. I was lonely, so I made you. Have I not shown you love, my Sharrow-met? Was not the Dark Glory everything I promised?

  “Yes,” she replied, lifting the amulet’s chain over her head and laying the jewel on the balustrade before her. “Everything and more.”

  It began to scream as she drew the scimitar, a shrill, desperate exhortation reaching out to the Shar-gur. Sharrow-met is Abominate! Kill her! KILL HER! KI-

  The scimitar’s pommel came down in a hammer blow, driven with all her unnatural strength, the Voice choking to silence as the red jewel shattered into a cloud of sparkling dust. She glanced up to see the Shar-gur had been quick to answer the Voice’s call, six blackwings formed into an arrowhead aimed straight at the spire, Harazil in the lead, axe held high. She could feel his rising hate and wondered if it had always been there, hidden behind unfaltering loyalty all these years, festering away as he waited his chance.

  She turned to Dralgen, reaching out to touch his chains, which fell away in an instant, leaving him gasping with the shock of release. She glanced at the two Tormented, both staring at her in abject bemusement. She blinked and the clasps holding their chains in place shattered. They both cried out in unison, falling to their knees, a great chorus of agony and wonder rising from the city as she turned back, her will reaching out to free every Tormented under her command.

  “I’ll bring the Shar-gur to you,” she told Dralgen, leaping over the balcony. “Kill as many as you can.”

  She plummeted for twenty yards before Keera caught her. The Shar-gur may still belong to the Voice but Keera had always been hers. The great bird’s talons snatched her from the air and Sharrow-met swung herself onto the harness on her back, immediately guiding the bird in a low
sweeping pass over the plaza below. The Shar-gur had the advantage of height, and she needed speed to have any chance of executing this stratagem. Behind her the Shar-gur’s blackwings screamed and air thundered as their riders forced them to greater efforts, Harazil’s hate-filled challenge cutting through the din.

  Sharrow-met guided Keera into a climb, sending them soaring high, ascending to the same height as the spire in a few beats. Keera folded her wings and they spun in the air, turning to face the pursuing Shar-gur, their formation tight as they rounded the spire and drew level with the balcony where Dralgen waited.

  The mage’s fire caught Harazil first, searing away his bird’s left wing in a blaze of white flame and cinders, sending both rider and bird spiralling towards the plaza below. The torrent of flame swept through the other Shar-gur, killing two and wounding the others before it flickered and died, Sharrow-met seeing the mage’s slim form slumping in exhaustion. She took Keera in a dive through what remained of the Shar-gur, scimitar flashing, the blackwing’s steel-shod talons rending the flesh of her own kind. The frenzy of battle was different without the Dark Glory, no surging exultation or joyous thrill at the spatter of blood on her skin, just the grunts and jolts of savage contest. The Shar-gur were mighty indeed, stolen heroes from once great kingdoms, but they were not her, and although they died hard, still they died.

  She decapitated the last of them as he fell from the back of his mortally wounded bird, head and body describing strangely identical bloody spirals as they tumbled towards the earth. Sharrow-met followed the corpse down and had Keera land outside the door to the great hall, near to where Harazil lay amid the smoking remains of his bird. She stepped down from Keera’s back, wincing from the stinging cut on her cheek, certain to scar now there was no jewel to heal her. Finally, a crack in the porcelain mask, she thought, wondering why the notion made her laugh.

  She noticed the city-folk gathering on the steps to the plaza, plainly fearful but edging ever closer. She knew they would kill her; once they realised she offered no more threat they would take bloody vengeance for their fallen men. She paused to play a hand through Keera’s feathers, whispering a final command. The bird gave a brief squawk, perhaps in reluctance, but nevertheless spread her wings and ascended into the sky once more. Sharrow-met watched her rise to circle the spire before striking off on an eastward course, towards the Iron Peaks where her kind made their home.