by James Stone
‘Magmaya, there’s no door.’ Anclyn shook her head. ‘There are no stairs. It was farther on—yes! It was farther on… yes?’
‘No!’ Magmaya spat. ‘It was here; it was right in front of me, carved into the wall as real as you are now. There was light coming through, I swear to you! We could’ve escaped through it… we could’ve run away from the angels and we—we could’ve started again. You’d never have to be a handmaiden to another mistress ever again—’
‘But why?’ Anclyn’s voice trembled. ‘Why would you imagine a door?’
‘I told you—Deih poisoned me,’ Magmaya stuttered. ‘She touched me and I—she must have had a needle on her finger! I thought it was some magic, but it was a—a poison, and it made me see things—things that weren’t there,’ she cried.
‘I don’t believe it.’ Anclyn wiped her eyes.
‘I’m sorry, I…’
‘Why, you were drunken, you mad, damned fool!’ she shouted. ‘You imagined exactly what you wanted. It doesn’t take a genius to figure you stole yourself a bottle of wine from the High Priestess.’
‘Anclyn—!’
‘Is that why you started this fire?’ she asked. ‘You were off your head? This whole thing was inside your little mind while people bled and died out there. You’ve killed us both, you—you whore! You’ve damned us both to hell.’
‘Please!’ Magmaya tugged at the air and found herself on her knees. ‘Anclyn, you have to believe me. She poisoned me! Please—trust me. I bet there’s still a vial of poison on her corpse!’
‘Trust you?’ Anclyn backed into the shadows with a cackle. ‘When I first met you, you spoke to me like a person, not some sewer rat. But you’ve been leading me through hoops and playing me for a fool—you’ve been lying at every turn!’
‘No—’
‘Is it because I don’t speak the common tongue as clearly as you? Or is it something else?’ She paused, shaking her head. ‘It’s not just me, though, is it? You left Keriah to die too. You left your family behind. Gods know how many others you’ve abandoned. So why not me, I suppose?’
The words were at her jaw like a kick to the teeth, and they were grumbling in her stomach. She cursed and turned away, but the world had crumbled by the time she looked back again.
And then there was silence.
And then there were voices.
They were cold and stern, and with them, there were heavy footsteps, as the chamber and the corridor lit up in a pearly glow.
‘Anclyn,’ Magmaya whispered. ‘Anclyn!’ The girl stirred and looked. ‘The Divinicus are coming.’
She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter how we die, now. Only that we do.’
‘No, no, no,’ Magmaya insisted. ‘It’s not too late for you—plead to them, Anclyn; tell them I stole you away from the Divinicus. You tell them you knew nothing of my defiance—you plead until they believe you and give you the tallest castle in Inamorata as an apology.’
She backed away. ‘But…’
‘Just…’ Magmaya clenched her fists. ‘For the love of…’ she paused. ‘Just do what I bloody tell you!’
‘I can’t,’ she stammered. ‘I can’t go back with them.’
Magmaya nodded and clawed at her hip, drawing the ritual blade. It caught the light and shimmered like something wondrous in the glow of the angel’s armour, but it was heavy with blood, and it was pointed at Anclyn’s throat. ‘Go,’ Magmaya insisted until her name no longer fit her face. ‘Go!’
Anclyn gave her one last look and scampered away with all the fear of the world in her, eyes the size of the moon. She turned back for a moment and whispered, quietly, ‘Were you drunk?’
‘No, but I damn well wish I was now,’ Magmaya said with a laugh and disappeared into the fire.
~ ~ ~
Anclyn felt her legs drag behind her before she collapsed into the grip of the Divinicus. The flames started to rush up around them, and she slipped into the darkness; it was all so bizarre, like none of it had happened—like it had been a fever dream.
I didn’t know, she rehearsed the words in her mind, she stole me away. But she couldn’t bring herself to speak. The cold arms of the angels had paralysed her tongue—and she wasn’t alone; as they escorted her out of the corridor, she found a crowd of captured Belliousans huddling from the fires beyond.
‘The handmaiden,’ one of the Divinicus said to the other before they tossed her into the pile of Belliousans, bloody and fearful.
The fire had cut the chamber in two, and soon enough, the corridors were in flames. It ate away with terrible fury, and the sight of it burned her soul.
Anclyn felt needle-like fingers caress her back, and then a sudden warmth as something brushed over her. She looked up to the lank silhouette of Cheyne behind, his flowery cloak draped over her shoulders. He pressed a finger to his lips and turned her attention back to the flames.
‘There’s something out there,’ he said softly, and there was—hardly.
Each of them watched, from the lowest Belliousan to the most exalted Divinicus, as Magmaya Vorr swam about the chamber. There was silence as she tossed and turned and finally collapsed into the mausoleum.
‘We better be off,’ Cheyne scoffed, and a moment later, the chamber was gone.
Anclyn found herself re-treading the same ground, eventually trampling over the corpse of Deih of the Water, until the First Temple and all its infernos were behind them.
The angels had clustered outside on the mountaintop and had begun making their way down the ivory stairs with Akanah at their head. There appeared to be as many Divinicus as there had been upon arrival, plus the two dozen Belliousans they had taken hostage and the captured banners they were burning. There was no sign of Keriah amongst them.
It would be a long night—that much was certain.
‘You were Magmaya Vorr’s handmaiden, no?’ Cheyne caught up and put a cold arm around her.
‘Yes.’ She shuddered.
‘And you were her friend?’
She shrugged and upped her pace. Anclyn felt an ache grow in the pit of her chest, a hole she so desperately wanted to fill. But all around her was the bombardment of the night and the glittery armour of the Divinicus blotting out the stars, and the hole just seemed to grow wider.
‘Good,’ she heard him whisper from behind. ‘You were her handmaiden—no more, no less. She’s served her punishment to the Maiden Gods, and you need not suffer for her treachery.’
He fastened his grip on her shoulder, and the pair began to descend the hillside in the white-red light of the burning Temple.
It was only when they reached the first watchtower that it began to rain.
~ ~ ~
The mausoleum was smaller than Magmaya remembered, but it had served adequately against the fire. She had huddled in the corner as the world around her glowed, and all she’d known turned to ashes. There was a perfect symmetry about it that she hadn’t noticed before, from the sculpted skulls to the demons covered from head to toe in antlers. The imagery was disturbing at best, but it was safer than the flames.
Magmaya forced herself to stare at the pitiful remains of Torth Fulton—a heap of flesh and bone. Soon, she might be like him, but not half as worshipped; she would just have been the high-born girl who threw away everything she had to travel south and die.
Clockwork artifices clawed at Torth as he lay, but somewhere under there the truth was buried. She felt for the ritual blade at her hip and hammered it down, and down again, hacking away at the glassy tomb. The first few attempts proved futile as the sword shimmered off pitifully. But when she persisted, the glass began to shudder, crack, and finally splinter until the chemicals spilt softly out. The corpse was even limper than it had been before, entangling itself on the remains of its own tomb.
There was a chiming of age-old brass, but it wasn’t enough. Magmaya took a breath and forced her arm into the fleshy thing, but she felt nothing on her fingertips—nothing but
the cold. That was until her nails found something hard and she clawed at it, wrenching it free from the corpse.
Magmaya held it aloft, and the clockwork heart burned like a flaming orb. Deih had been changed, and Torth too. Perhaps all the Belliousans had. Perhaps they would survive to walk again.
But not her. She had hoped to feel the light caress her fingertips, the warmth of mountains lash down upon her and stars sing up above; but it was a half-made death, and even if, somehow, she lived, there would be no sense in standing. Another girl would take her place and swagger off with Anclyn—it was a half-made death, but it was hers all the same.
Magmaya smiled and found herself thinking of the Summerlands before she fell into the pool of formaldehyde. It baptised her and embraced her, turning to roses in her palms. But all she saw was the floor take aflame and form riverbanks around her neck.
She tried to scream as the heat began to singe her hair. She had brushed it every day for as long as she remembered; she had dyed the blonde out of it; she had kept it tidy while Anclyn filled it with flowers. No, my hair! She wished she could’ve cried. My hair.
Magmaya stole a breath and closed her eyes. She drowned in an ocean of rose petals as they filled her lungs and kissed her neck.
Twenty-Seven
Anclyn broke her fast with Yalsus and the others before the sun had risen. No one spoke, save for Legatus Akanah, who sat and made lewd remarks at a skimpy servitor, while Krel threatened to cut the cook in two if he took any longer to prepare his food. The other Divinicus stood to attention, but Akanah’s chosen few just sat and laughed and drank.
There were perhaps thirty feet before Anclyn and the Small Court were permitted to sit and eat, and they did so in the silence and smoke that rose from the shell of the First Temple. No longer did the rain beat down on the pavilion; Akanah had forced the captured Belliousans to set up the tent at the foot of the mountain and had taken great glee in watching them do so. Rumours were even circulating that Krel had raped half of them and beaten the rest. The thought made Anclyn sick.
Protests around the blockade had scarcely ceased all night; the jeers and shouts from those who’d lost their goddess echoed through the mountainside. The Divinicus had been dispatched throughout the morning darkness, and shortly after, the gutters ran thick with blood and rain. But it had only taken a few minutes for the protests to begin again.
‘My mother was a whore.’ Yalsus broke the silence with a grin. ‘She was the greatest whore in all the land, they said, and I believed it. After all, she was infertile but shagged good enough to have me.’ He smirked to himself, but his smile faded all the same. ‘She died in a fire; it was her and a man from the Silver City lying on sheepskin in front of an open fireplace. It doesn’t take much imagination to guess what happened,’ he chortled. ‘You girls juggle your candlesticks all you like, but you’ll drop them eventually.’
‘Is this necessary?’ Cheyne asked, biting into a slice of buttered bread. ‘The fire has scarcely gone out.’
‘Pah, what did that foreign girl ever do for us? She wasn’t your friend, was she?’ Yalsus asked Anclyn, who shook her head, sheepishly. ‘Then may the Maiden Gods show her mercy.’
‘Rumours say you were trying to escape with her, though,’ one of the other handmaidens remarked.
‘She was a means to an end. I just needed to get out of that hellhole,’ Anclyn replied bitterly, but when she spoke, it was as if she was betraying herself.
Yalsus frowned and looked across the table to her. ‘You’ve scarcely touched your food, dear.’
‘It’s dire.’ Anclyn tore the bread into smaller and smaller chunks until her fingertips were sore and coated with crumbs. ‘In the Summerlands, we had fresh fruit, and in the continent, we stole straight from the import ships. But here? There’s mud, and there’s bread.’
‘At least it isn’t burnt,’ one of the others chimed in, and Anclyn dropped her food.
‘I think I’ve lost my appetite, actually.’ She stood, and the chair screeched behind her. She tossed the mutilated bread to an eager flock of crows, and forced herself into the rain outside, somewhere between the tent and the barricade of Divinicus.
But before she could clear the blockade, a shimmery hand clamped down on her shoulder.
‘Where are you going handmaiden?’ Akanah asked, his voice like cold milk.
‘A walk, my lord. I would like some air.’
‘There’s air inside the tent.’ He tugged at her arm, smirking. ‘Come back inside. Aren’t you enjoying the celebration feast?’
Celebrating what? Losing Belliousa? She wondered, and her heart sunk. But then, there was a flash of flowery robes, and the thin form of Cheyne forced himself between them.
‘My lord,’ he purred. ‘She only wants a stroll. I’ll watch her if you will.’
The Legatus waved her away and returned to his own kind. Anclyn breathed a sigh of relief.
‘What are you doing?’ Cheyne asked, but she’d already gone.
Anclyn felt his footsteps become her shadow as they left the curfew of the pavilion and disappeared into the upset of the crowds. They skirted their tormented shouts and escaped through the blockade with scarcely a splatter of mud about them.
They passed a beggar in the street, shrouded in discarded brown cloth, so Anclyn reached down and gave her some copper she had found about the tent.
‘Perhaps if you’d stuck a needle in her toe, she would’ve at least danced for us,’ Cheyne suggested. ‘She’ll go off and spend it on poison now.’
They found themselves at the foot of a small waterfall—no, it wasn’t even that. The waterfalls in the Summerlands were vast and tremendous goliaths of rushing white and glistening emerald; this was a trickle of brown from a broken pipe in the mountainside. Around it, there were grey dogs lapping at the filthy water, bones jutting through their fur as if they hadn’t been fed in an age. There were doves pecking at the dirt too, and occasionally, Anclyn noticed, they’d find a piece they both fancied and proceed to peck at one another’s necks until they were bloodied and tired.
The handmaiden turned away and wandered through the streets until she found herself at the foot of those ivory stairs again, watching as they disappeared into the cloud and flame and smoke that shrouded the First Temple. The last time she’d climbed these steps, she’d done so with an army. Now, she would do it alone.
‘Where exactly are we going?’ Cheyne caught up. ‘Have you quite forgotten how long it took us to climb up the last time? They’ll be worried, girl.’
Anclyn laughed at that, taking the first dilapidated step. ‘I intend to walk up this mountainside and throw myself from whatever is left of the tallest tower.’ She paused. ‘Or, maybe I’m going to go for a walk. Follow along and find out, if you want.’
There was an audible sigh from behind, but sure enough, a moment later, they had disappeared into the mist.
There was nothing to see, so she thought instead, but thinking hurt her head. When she had scaled the mountain before, she’d been furious with Magmaya for lying to her about Deih, but now she was furious with her for dying. Whatever her mistress did seemed to piss some part of her off, and so she decided it was better not to think about her at all—if that could be helped.
But Magmaya just kept rushing back through her mind wherever she moved, and no matter how much she tried to numb herself, the nothingness hurt too.
‘It’s bloody cold.’ Cheyne’s voice echoed down the cliff. ‘It was never like this in Glassrock. There were only tropics and beaches and sun.’
‘Sounds like the Water,’ Anclyn said. ‘With fewer pirates.’
‘Oh, there were pirates.’ Cheyne nodded to himself. ‘But apart from that, it was a grand place, even when the mountains did start bleeding fire. Perhaps I’ll go back there one day.’ He looked to her. ‘Perhaps you’ll go back home too.’
Anclyn sighed. ‘I fear there’s no place in the world left for me now.’
&nb
sp; ‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ he said. ‘The angels have far more trust in me than I do in them. I’m sure an eye could be turned while someone stole a small boat.’
‘Oh yes, and then the trip would only take a few months,’ she grumbled. ‘Besides, I have no sense of how to row or sail. Maybe you could whisk me away from the angels as I was whisked away from my home, instead.’
‘One day, if the price is right.’ He laughed to himself.
‘I don’t have any money to offer you.’ She shrugged. ‘I have nothing to offer men like you anymore.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘We don’t know one another very well,’ she mumbled, her cheeks red. ‘Perhaps a girl was speaking out of place.’
‘Carry on. I’m hardly offended,’ he said. ‘Besides, Legatus Akanah doesn’t have to hear anything we don’t want him to.’
‘He doesn’t?’
‘Of course, he doesn’t,’ he said. ‘I would consider myself an honest man, in truth, handmaiden.’
‘How so?’ she asked, intrigued by the prospect of his answer.
‘I’ve been promised a sweet maiden of sixteen from Kythera,’ he replied. ‘She has auburn hair and is very beautiful, I hear. Little Yala, sister of Yala, daughter of Great Yala.’ He laughed at that. ‘And I haven’t slept with another woman since our engagement.’
‘How noble.’ It was exactly what she had expected.
‘You forget how deep the passion of men is,’ he remarked. ‘One moment we pledge ourselves for life, the next, we kill to stick ourselves inside someone new. But that’s beside the point; this girl is from a high-born family on the Chain Islands, and I intend to make her my queen after this is all over. I just hope Akanah hurries up, in truth.’
‘You’re not alone in thinking that, my lord.’
‘I am not a lord, sweet thing.’
‘Oh,’ Anclyn remarked. ‘Why is that?’
