Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  What was it about the arrival of Loki that had rattled the mage so much? It was as though someone had picked a scab in his mind, making it ooze. That was how Farden thought of it. Fifteen years he had spent locking away his magick and his memories. It was why he had hidden himself away in a shack by a forgotten beach; why he buried himself in wine and mörd and nevermar and refused to get close to anyone; why he had been content to be a hired blade, so long as he was left alone. A scab for his wounds. Now Loki had come to pick at it.

  What wound needed such a scab? Him. Farden himself. The mage was a curse.

  Although his world had been shattered by Kiltyrin’s betrayal, it was still his world. He had let those people, the Duke, Kint, Forluss, Jeasin, this Loffrey bastard, into it and therefore the benefits, or the detriments, he had reaped were his and his alone. They were actors in his morbid little drama. Up until now they had been inconveniences and sources of coin. He had let his guard down and therefore brought this situation upon himself, but it was upon himself, and no other. That was why Farden could handle this world, this melancholy, immoral morass he had willingly sunk himself into.

  But the god sitting on his beach was an intruder. An interloper who had come to pick and probe, and laugh like a jester while he did it. Loki was an ambassador for those he had hurt and been forced to leave behind, those he had cared about. Farden had left them behind to save them from further harm. Why in Emaneska were they trying to drag him back? The fools.

  Bad decision after bad decision he’d made. Years of them, queuing up like the dead in his dream. Murder, betrayal, death, he had caused them all. He had even… and it hurt Farden to dig the thought out from where he and the nevermar had buried it… even brought a monster into the world.

  He had burnt his bridges long ago, and now Loki had been sent to rebuild them. He was sure of it. Messenger or not, lesser god or greater, he loathed him for it. He would use whatever resources Loki had to offer, drown the bastards in their own blood, and then laugh as he sent the god packing back to the east.

  Farden, like any disease, needed to be left alone to infect those who deserved it, and no others.

  The mage rolled his knives up in a patchwork cloth and left them beside the lopsided door. He rummaged through the contents of an overturned box and found a splintered handle with a length of chain and a spiked metal ball at the end. It was a flail, and an old one at that, speckled with rust. Farden hummed as he felt its points with his sandy thumb. Rusted as it was, it was still sharp. That was what he needed. Sharp, brutal, ugly things to embed into skulls and faces.

  Farden folded the flail carefully over his shoulder and rifled through a dishevelled pile of rumpled clothes with his toe. There was a cloak there, a dark red cloth one with a hole in the hood. Better than nothing. He found a spare belt draped over the stove’s battered chimney. It would do. His borrowed trousers were good enough, as was the shirt. His boots would barely survive the next few weeks. He only needed one.

  As he turned to head back to the beach, Farden instinctively patted his wrists to check his vambraces. He growled darkly when he realised they weren’t there. The strange emptiness and lightness of his arms was made stranger by the feeling of the cold, curious air across his naked skin, where normally he would have felt the scales of warm metal, and the rush of their subtle magick.

  The mage had forbidden himself from contemplating their permanent loss. He refused to entertain the thought that Kiltyrin could have sold them, or dispatched them to some far-off and secret corner of his duchy. It made his stomach clench every time it crossed his mind. He would have them back. Prise them from as many dead fingers as he had to. And quickly too. He tried not to pay attention to the strange aches that flitted across his joints and bones. Nevermar wasn’t the only thing he was withdrawing from.

  Blood, there will be, thought the mage, and not a drop of his. He had spilt enough.

  Farden clenched his fists and contemplated strangling something. He spied a candle on the floor, one with a smiling, half-drunken face, and he crushed it with a vicious stamp of his sandy heel. Served it right, grinning at a time like this.

  The mage donned the dark red cloak and went back to the beach, taking the rusty flail with him. The warm breeze welcomed him. Loki was still playing with his stew. Whiskers had made a bed for himself in the warm sand near the fire. Farden let the flail drop in the sand with a thud, drawing a glance from Loki. ‘That looks friendly,’ said the god.

  ‘I imagine it looks even better embedded in a Duke’s ribcage,’ Farden muttered. He sat cross-legged in the sand and began to scrape the rust from the weapon with the whetstone and a scrap of oiled cloth. Whiskers watched and sniffed.

  It took him half an hour to make it battle-worthy. Farden tested the points again with his thumb and nodded. ‘Good enough,’ he mumbled. He swung it around above his head to test it. The weapon rattled and hummed as it spun in its deadly arcs. Farden brought it down on a nearby driftwood log, making Whiskers jump. The metal ball broke the log in two, sending a shower of splinters to float on the breeze. The mage smiled as he pictured what he might do with it.

  Loki had finished his stew. ‘So what exactly is your plan? I assume you actually have a plan?’

  Farden shrugged. ‘Go to Castle Tayn, start with Kint and Forluss, and then work my way to that Loffrey man and then the Duke. Kill them all, and make sure the last thing they see is my grinning face. Then I get my armour back and leave,’ he said. He suddenly thought of Timeon and Moirin, and Jeasin, and wondered how they would fit into all of this. He rubbed his forehead. ‘I’ll make the rest up as I go along,’ he added.

  ‘Sounds like a fine plan to me,’ replied Loki, dissatisfied. He couldn’t imagine the dour mage really grinning at anything at all. He wondered, not for the first time, what Evernia saw in him.

  Farden clenched his fists once more, almost as if testing his fingers. ‘I’ve been waiting for this for years.’

  Loki raised an eyebrow. ‘For somebody to try to hang you?’

  Farden shook his head. ‘For the day when Kiltyrin would give me an excuse.’

  ‘I see. And how exactly do you expect to get into the Duke’s castle undetected, and have enough time to kill all four of them without raising the alarm? That’s assuming he’s still in this Tayn place, and not elsewhere?’

  Farden stared at the quiet flames of the fire. ‘He’s in Tayn. He thinks I’m dead, and therefore has no reason to move. Like I said, the rest I’ll figure it out as I go.’

  Loki sighed. ‘And how do you plan to escape once you’ve retrieved your precious Scalussen armour? It would be a terrible waste of time for you to make all this effort to get your armour back, only to die again on the castle steps.’

  Farden looked up at the god. He was mimicking Farden’s exact pose: cross-legged on the sand, knees tucked into his elbows, hands clasped around his bowl. Why send this one, of all the gods to send? He didn’t seem wise, or ancient, or powerful, or inspiring. He spoke more like a jumped-up stable-boy than an immortal. ‘And what do you know about my armour?’ asked the mage.

  Loki rolled his eyes. ‘I’m a god, Farden. Don’t insult my intelligence.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare,’ Farden sullenly replied. ‘I’m sure I’ll come up with something.’

  But Loki was persistent. ‘And what are you going to do after it’s over? What are you going to do for coin? It’s an expensive habit you seem to have adopted,’ he said with a nod towards the shed.

  ‘I’ll take what I’m owed from the Duke. I survived before, I can do it again.’

  ‘I can’t imagine you really settling down with Traffyd and his wife and living the farmer’s life. You might as well keep killing for coin,’ said Loki. Farden wondered if he was trying to antagonise the mage, but he seemed serious enough. He was staring at the stars and counting their shapes.

  ‘Served me well so far,’ mumbled Farden.

  ‘And I take it you won’t be using your magick?’

  Fard
en shook his head very quickly and very firmly. ‘No.’ If the mage was a curse, a disease, then his magick was the root of it. Even now, when he most likely needed it the most, the stubborn mage refused to even think of it.

  ‘I imagined you wouldn’t. It’s a shame, to see such skill go to waste, and especially at a time like this, when it could probably come in handy.’

  ‘I said no,’ insisted the mage.

  ‘Well then, I suppose you might be needing these,’ Loki said. He tapped his bowl on a nearby chunk of driftwood, slipped it back into his coat, and got to his feet. The mage didn’t move. He and Whiskers just watched warily. Still with his hand in his coat, Loki crouched down beside Farden. He rummaged for a little while, eyes distant and thoughtful as eyes tend to be when the fingers are doing the looking. Before Farden could ask what on earth he was doing, Loki produced his first item. ‘Mistfrond,’ he said, dropping a strange object on the sand. It looked like something halfway between a pear and a pinecone, but was a reddish pink in colour, and had furry spines that curled around it. Whiskers moved to sniff at it and quickly retreated. Loki explained while he continued to search his pockets.

  ‘From the shores of the Ghast Sea in the distant east. Grows on a single tree on a single beach each year, and a different beach every time. If you eat it, it will give your skin a fog-like quality, yes fog, not frog, for a short while. Makes you very hard to see. It also makes you violently ill, so use carefully.’

  Next came a little vial of brackish liquid. Farden wrinkled his lip at it. Loki looked up. ‘Beggarbeet sap. I’m surprised you didn’t see this stuff in Paraia. It smells worse than anything you can imagine. Might be useful.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You said you’d make it up as you went along.’

  Loki then dug out a length of ship’s rope, crusted in salt, a long yet impossibly thin dagger for doors and their locks, a hat with a mop of blonde hair sewn into its hem, and two pages that looked as though they had been ripped from a spell book. Farden nudged these warily. ‘I told you. No magick.’

  Loki ignored him. ‘A few magick markets discovered a little while ago that burning certain spells had the same effect as reading them out loud. It’s not a popular trend, seeing as it involves the burning of some very expensive books and paper, but for those who can’t manage the feel of magick, it’s perfect. These are light spells. Specifically, bursting spells. They’ll blind anyone.’

  ‘Where did you get all this stuff?’

  ‘I told you, I’ve a habit of finding things.’

  Farden shook his head. ‘And why should I trust you?’

  Loki left his things in a pile by the mage’s knees and returned to his spot on the other side of the fire. ‘Because, mage, you need all the help you can get. You could barely walk twenty miles today. You shake every time you think of your armour.’

  Farden resented it, but he was right. He could feel the weakness lurking inside him, as though a leech had wriggled its way to his heart and was gorging itself. It stung to accept the help of the god, but he had to. ‘Fine,’ he said. He gathered the god’s supplies and then got to his feet. As if to prove Loki’s point, his legs wobbled unsteadily. ‘But don’t you get to thinking I’m in debt to you for helping me. Or for saving my life. I didn’t ask for either,’ he said, as he walked away. Whiskers looked up but stayed by the fire.

  ‘You don’t ask for a lot of things, Farden, and yet they come to you nonetheless. Fate, I believe you humans call it. Besides, I’m just protecting my investment. How exactly am I supposed to deliver a message to a dead man?’ Loki called after him.

  For some reason, and despite the warm breeze, Farden shivered as he walked back to his little shack. ‘Don’t worry. I died once. I don’t intend to do it again any time soon,’ he said. All he needed was his armour back.

  Loki waited until he was almost at the door of the shack before asking his last question. He knew the mage wouldn’t answer, but he asked it anyway. ‘I understand blaming us gods for your misfortune. I understand blaming your magick too. I even understand seeking out this sort of life, and burying your past in solitude and nevermar. What puzzles me most of all, mage, is why would somebody who lives like you want to live forever?’

  Farden hovered at the door. He felt no anger at the question, no shame, just an intense feeling of puzzlement. After a moment of silence, listening to the breeze and the undulating sea, he stepped indoors and slammed the rickety door behind him.

  Farden took a moment to stand in the middle of his dark shack and look around. The faint orange glow of the fire outside threw a little light through the windows. The mattress in the corner beckoned to his tired legs and leaden eyes. The corner of a little cloth bag poking out from under the stove beckoned as well. Farden let himself move toward the latter.

  Bending down, hearing his knees click, Farden slid the cloth bag from its hiding place and looked inside. The bag was emptier than he remembered. He looked at the mattress, then back at the bag. He would regret it tomorrow, he knew it, but for now… His body and mind itched to feels its numbing claws, its warm glow, to banish his bothersome thoughts. It had been over three weeks, and his body was crying out for it. Maybe just a little, he thought. No pipe, just the good old fashioned way…

  Farden stuck his fingers into the bag and pinched a grape-sized amount. Rolling it between his fingers he tucked it between his teeth and his lip while he folded the bag away. He shed his cloak and went to his mattress. As he put his head on his pillow, he began to chew, and the room quickly melted into that foggy haze. That glorious numbness. His eyes drooped.

  Suddenly he began to panic. His legs twitched uncontrollably and his chest clenched. A cold fist clutched his heart. Farden sat bolt upright and found a dribble of sweat coursing down his face. The nevermar had turned bitter in his mouth, and between erratic and panicked breaths, he began to gather it together with his tongue and spit it on the floor. Farden scrabbled to press himself up against the wall, and sat there, wheezing and coughing.

  It took him several minutes to get his breathing back to normal, and even then his heart pounded like a war drum in his chest. No matter how many times he wiped it away with the back of his hand, the sweat kept coming. The dizziness from the drug blurred his vision, and no amount of blinking would make it go away. It was the feeling of dying all over again, Farden suddenly realised, and it terrified him to his very core. The numbness creeping over his body. Ice water washing his veins clean. Breath becoming slow, tumescent, laborious. Darkness lurking in the corners of his eyes. It was all there. It was horrifying. Farden shivered again, and slowly, ever so slowly, slumped into his mattress so he could curl up into a ball. Tentatively, he allowed himself to fall into a fitful, twitching sleep, full of dark mountains, screaming vultures, and a strange whistling sound.

  Outside, on the beach, Loki was still staring at the slow-dancing stars. Some he squinted and narrowed his eyes at, others he sighed for. The fire was slowly dying. A faint finger of cold had crept into the breeze. Loki felt it, but he didn’t mind. On his right, Farden’s rat was crouched in the sand. His beady black eyes were glued to the back door of the shack, as if he were anxiously waiting for Farden to return.

  ‘What is it?’ asked the god. Whiskers glanced at him briefly and then looked back at the door. His whiskers twitched with every little breath he took.

  Eyes fixed on the rat, Loki reached into one of his many mysterious coat pockets and this time he withdrew a little pipe. The musical sort, not the tobacco kind. He ran his fingers along its tiny holes, testing each one. Once he was happy he put it to his lips and blew a low note, one that seemed to swell and billow with the breeze and the hissing waves. The god let this note wander and waver for a minute before allowing it to fall away into the sand. Its lingering echoes were soon joined by a slow melody that seemed to skip and jump from each note to the next. At points it was slightly discordant and haunting, and then suddenly the notes would tumble over each other and gallop, and then slow a
gain. Whiskers turned to watch the god play the little pipe, and then, as the melody ebbed and flowed, the rat rose up onto his haunches and began to dance. His tail flicked back and forth in the sand, and his tiny paws jabbed the air. Occasionally he would squeak along to the tune, and at other times he would close his eyes. Loki leant closer and played along to the rat’s strange little dance.

  When he was finished, when the odd tune had faded, the rat settled back down. He watched the god intently. Loki nodded to it, as if thanking him for the dance, and then looked over at the shack, still faintly lit by the orange glow of the dying fire. ‘Didn’t know gods were born,’ he mused thoughtfully. He turned to face the sliver of moon loitering in the south. ‘Next he’ll be assuming we’re immortal.’

  Chapter 13

  “A Written will serve the Arka and the Arka only.

  A Written will never reveal his Book to another, nor allow it to be revealed.

  A Written is forbidden to breed with Written, mage, or otherwise.

  A Written shall not seek to use his powers against his fellow Arka.

  A Written will serve the Arkmages, the Undermage, the Council, and the Arka with his life.

  A Written, like any mage, is forbidden to consume the poison known as Nevermar.

  A Written, if his Book has taken his mind, shall face permanent exile or death.

  The penalty for breaking these rules is death by hanging, unless pardoned by the Council.”

  The Rules of The Written - Updated Charter of the year 799

  Far to the east, where the mountains slid into the sea, under the same sliver of white moon, Elessi was staring at the stars. It was a clear night over Krauslung; no clouds had yet been brave enough to come out and bare their nebulous faces.

  The maid stood at the edge of the new Nest, one hand resting lightly on a marble branch while the other clutched a shawl about her to stave off the slight but cold wind. At least the oak under her bare feet was still warm from the day’s sun and from the rising heat from the Arkathedral below. Her green dress and apron did their best to keep out the wind. It was content to pester her long brunette curls.