Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  ‘I said stop, Moirin!’ one of the men barked in her ear. She didn’t look at him. Farden recognised him as one of the more senior guard captains. The other was just a lackey. He was bent over, trying to catch his breath.

  ‘I told you! He’s with the Duke. And you ain’t allowed in there!’

  Farden took another step forward. Kiltyrin tried his hardest to avoid the boy as much as possible. For him to summon his son made no sense. Moirin yanked herself free. ‘How dare you tell me what I can and cannot do!’ she shrieked, her old fire sparking for just a moment. She wrenched herself free and sprang forward. ‘If that bastard harms a single hair on my boy’s head…!’ her threat trailed away as she fled down the hallway.

  Farden followed, knives ready. It felt as though his stomach was trying to escape up his windpipe. He skidded to a halt to spew in a doorway. It was quick, mercifully so, and the mage hurried on. His skin felt as pale as the mist that wrapped him. Dizziness had crept upon him like a lizard. He sprinted to catch up.

  Moirin had found the Duke’s doors and thrown them open. They were not locked, but the heaviness of the doors slowed her, and the guards tackled her to the stone floor. She cried out in pain and frustration.

  Farden was on them in a second. He tried to imagine their confusion and abject terror as a pair of unseen hands grabbed each of them by their necks and dragged them aside, kicking and yelling. Farden quickly silenced them with swift thwacks from the pommels of his knives. The blades were not for them. Moirin was completely oblivious with panic. She scrambled to her feet and ran into her husband’s room, all thoughts for her son. A scream split the air.

  If Farden had hated the Duke before, the sight of him in that room drove him to sheer and utter loathing, a feeling reserved for the deepest, darkest pits of one’s heart. A feeling he hadn’t felt since he had faced Vice.

  Timeon sat in a little wooden chair by the hissing fire. A glowing dagger hovered near his face. Moirin’s screams may have halted Kiltyrin’s hand but the hot blade loitered with intent. Timeon’s face was tear-stained, streaked with brine and the dust of a boy’s play. Another hand pinched Timeon’s right ear in a tight grip and was pulling hard. A brat, Timeon may have been, but a boy all the same. The Duke’s boy too. His own son, and here he was, about to slice his ears from his head.

  Moirin rushed forward but Kiltyrin waggled the blade closer to the boy’s ear. Farden thought he saw a glint of red and gold hiding under the ruffles of the Duke’s emerald shirt-sleeves. That made him burn even more. ‘What are you doing?’ Morin was shrieking.

  Farden stayed by the door, fuming and growling and squeezing his knife-handles so hard it hurt. The Duke was ignoring him. He didn’t seem surprised to see him…

  … Wait. He hadn’t seen him. The mage was still invisible. He had completely forgotten in the tumult. He looked down at his arms and saw his hands slowly fading into reality. Two faint shafts of steel began to form out of water-droplets and catch the firelight.

  The Duke was talking. ‘What I am doing, Moirin, is teaching this wretched boy of mine a lesson he will never forget. Eavesdroppers! Even my own…’ Kiltyrin faltered for a split-second. ‘Even this boy thinks he can put his filthy ear to my door!’ The hot dagger inched forward. Timeon whined with utter fear.

  Farden grit his teeth as another wave of sickness came. He looked down again. His fist, knuckles strangled, white as snow, appeared from the haze that wrapped his body. It steamed as though the burning rage inside him was a real fire. Farden began to stride forward. The Duke was still talking. The words were hollow ramblings. Farden could only hear one thing, and that was the cracking of his knuckles as he put one of his knives away and clenched his fist as hard as he could. The rage poured into his arm as if it were his old magick. The mage broke into a jog, then a run, then a full-out sprint, fist poised, the arm of a catapult, steam trailing from it as it formed out of fading mist.

  Kiltyrin looked up to see a spectre bearing down on him, and his mouth fell open just in time for Farden to swing his fist like a hammer.

  The noise of knuckles meeting cheek was like a brick flying through a slab of meat. Kiltyrin sailed into a nearby desk, while Farden rolled with the momentum of his swing and tumbled to a heap near the window. The dagger spun to the floor. Moirin rushed forward and yanked Timeon from the chair. The boy was in deep shock. A ghost had just saved his life, after all. He trembled as his mother nearly smothered him with her arms. They both cowered behind the bed and watched in disbelief as a bedraggled man in a red cloak formed out of thin air, and then vomited behind a curtain. Moirin was as shocked as her son.

  ‘Farden?!’ she gasped. The name made Timeon flinch, and he lifted his head to see the mage stumbling over to where the Duke lay amidst the wreckage of an ornate pine desk.

  ‘Four-hand?!’ he whimpered, bewildered. Farden lifted his hand in dizzy reply, but he did not look at the boy nor his mother. His rage had glued his eyes to the despicable Duke that lay at his feet.

  Kiltyrin was out cold. His eyes were wide open as though he were dead, but Farden could still hear the breath sliding in and out of him. The mage slammed his knife, point-down, into a section of desk near the Duke’s head, making Moirin jump. She could guess what was coming, and she quickly covered Timeon’s eyes with her hand again.

  But the mage did not do anything except bend over to pick up the book that lay underneath the broken desk. It was a messy thing, crammed with scraps of cloth and parchment and bursting at its spine. It was his notebook, pilfered from his shack along with his armour. Farden thumbed through it. Some pages had already been ripped out, no doubt by Loffrey.

  Just as Farden was about to toss the tome to the floor, his thumb landed on a page that stuck out from all the rest. A page he had spent many a sleepless, nevermar-tainted night on. Farden made sure to keep it close to his chest as he cracked the page a little wider.

  It was his Book, faithfully recreated by ink, a pair of mirrors, and a lonely candle. Farden ran his fingers across it, glaring at every little rune and scrap of script. It had taken him many nights to scrawl. He had begun out of pure boredom and drunken curiosity, but the more he transcribed, the more he began to think he could unravel the secrets of why his Book was so different. He hadn’t come remotely close to unravelling anything at all, but had let it remain in the notebook nonetheless, an homage to the hours he had spent copying it out. To his knowledge, such a thing had never been attempted, not by scholar nor Written. Nobody would be foolish enough.

  Even written in simple ink, the arrangement of its foreign words and intricate runes made the page glisten with a faint power. All it lacked to make it thoroughly dangerous, like any spell, were its keys. Farden had known better than to transcribe them. They remained on his wrists, dormant, spurned, exiled like the rest of his magick. But that didn’t stop particular words biting at his fingers as he roamed over them.

  Tattooed or transcribed in ink, the strange script of a Book was one of pure magick. Farden had often stared at this page and wondered at how to translate it. A spell could be written and spoken in any language, and the language of the Book was a peculiar one. One that only the dead Scribe had ever known. The Arfell scholars would have given half their libraries to examine this page, Farden thought. And half their minds, too. It may not have been a true Book, but its words could still send a man’s mind spiralling into madness. Not Farden’s mind, however. Though the Written were forbidden to show their Books to anyone, even other Written, their own Books were safe to read. Farden was immune to his and his only. It was a curse and a useless blessing all at once.

  Kiltyrin groaned at his feet as he slowly returned to the world of the conscious. It was at that moment, his thumb stuck fast in the open page, that a dark idea stumbled into Farden’s mind. A very dark idea indeed.

  Farden knelt down next to Kiltyrin’s head, watching him come around. The Duke’s eyes fluttered for a moment, trying to focus, before he recognised the man staring down at him. He flinch
ed away and began pawing for his dagger, but Farden had already kicked it away. ‘You,’ was all Kiltyrin could say, the shock and pain and confusion all neatly wrapped up in a venomous, monosyllabic accusation.

  ‘Me,’ came Farden’s reply. He leant closer to show Kiltyrin his notebook. Kiltyrin scrabbled weakly to get away, screwing his eyes shut.

  ‘Get that away from me!’ he hissed. His cheeks were already turning an angry red. Farden could feel the man’s hatred emanating from him and clashing with his own. Failure and fear met revenge and wrath.

  ‘If you know what it is,’ said Farden, in a voice tight with anger. ‘Then you’ll know what it can do.’

  ‘Loffrey told me all about it.’

  ‘I’m sure he did,’ Farden nodded. He stood up, let the notebook fall to the table, and wrenched the knife from the top of the desk.

  ‘Farden, please!’ cried Moirin. She may have hated her husband, but she wasn’t quite ready to see him gutted on the floor. He was Timeon’s father, after all.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Farden muttered. He put his boot on Kiltyrin’s chest and reached up to cut the cord from the curtain. He then deftly looped it around the Kiltyrin’s neck, much to his dismay, and dragged him into a nearby chair. Farden’s tired body screamed as he manhandled the Duke but once again his anger spurred him on. It took little more than a moment to wrap the cord around the man’s hands and legs and knot him to the little chair.

  Farden had to give it to him. There was not a trace of cowardice to be seen in the Duke, simply a hot, glowering anger at being outmanoeuvred. ‘I suppose you’re going to make this slow and painful,’ he spat. Farden smiled, saying nothing. It gave the mage immense pleasure to see him so helpless, so broken. A man usually so groomed and composed and spotless, suddenly no more than a dishevelled mess tied to a chair. Kiltyrin’s expensive clothes were now covered in splinters and wood-dust. There was a little fleck of saliva dangling from his flame-red goatee. An ugly bruise was already blossoming on his cheek. His split lip oozed. Oh, how many times had Farden dreamt of this.

  ‘Not before I get my answers,’ he said.

  Kiltyrin spat some more. ‘Ah yes, of course. Your simple brain hasn’t quite traced the steps yet, has it? I have to commend you, Farden. You’re nothing if not consistent, in your idiocy at least. Let me guess. First of all you’re going to get your answers, then you’re going to lecture me on what a despicable sort of human being I am, and how, despite being at my bloody beck and call for the last, what is it? Sixteen years? That you’re exempt from any sort of depravity or inculpation, due to the fact that you’re now doing the world a favour by saving that brat and his mother, and stringing me up by my neck. All sins wiped clean, so to speak? Of course, not forgetting these too,’ he laughed, snidely, as he rattled his wrists, ramping up his verbal onslaught. His eyes were wide with anger. ‘You and I both know that the armour was the real reason you came back. Not some higher moral calling or righteous quest for revenge. Greed, Farden. Greed and another excuse to dip your hands in more blood. I’m assuming Kint and Forluss have already met their gruesome ends? I thought as much. Tell me, Farden, how many have you killed for me over the years? You’re naught but a common murderer.’

  A month ago, Farden would have quailed at the onslaught of sharp words and poisoned accusations. But now, the words fell on ears of stone. He laughed heartily, noticing how quickly the Duke’s smile faded. ‘Hundreds, probably,’ he shrugged, putting another little crack in the Duke’s ploy.

  ‘Hundreds…’ Kiltyrin echoed.

  ‘Seems your tongue has finally lost its poison, Kiltyrin. And even if it hadn’t, do you think that I would listen now, after what you’ve done to me? Another mistake made.’ Farden sauntered to the door and turned its iron key, sealing the room. He then took an armchair from beside the fire and set it in front of the Duke. ‘Now, about those answers…’ he began.

  Kiltyrin sneered. He tried another tact. ‘And why should I give you the satisfaction of answers? You’re going to kill me anyway, so I why should I bother myself? I have half a mind to let you drive yourself mad.’

  ‘You flatter yourself. You’re also wrong,’ Farden tapped the Duke’s knee with the tip of the knife. ‘You see, I have no intention of killing you. Far from it. I know you’re a man who puts a lot of effort into staying alive, staying on top. Why else would you go to some much trouble to steal my armour? I also know now that death is the easy way out. No. I’d rather you live on and have your final, pitiful years haunted by the fact that I’m still alive.’

  For once, Kiltyrin looked indecisive. His face reminded Farden of when they had first met, in the keep of Wodehallow, when the Duke had seemed so impetuous and young. ‘And how do I know you’re not lying?’ he asked.

  ‘You have my word.’

  Kiltyrin laughed coldly. ‘And what use is the word of a murderer like you?’

  Farden nodded. ‘You’re right. I wouldn’t hold a promise to you. But I would hold one to your wife.’ The mage turned around in his chair and looked at Moirin. She seemed to have regained some of her colour. ‘I give you my word I will not kill your husband,’ he said. Moirin looked at him and bit her lip. He could tell that she was torn. Timeon struggled in her grip.

  ‘Unhand me, mother!’ he cried. Moirin just held him that much tighter. She licked her lips, and nodded. Farden turned back to the Duke.

  ‘See?’

  ‘Fine.’

  Farden got comfortable. ‘First things first. Where’s Loffrey?’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Are you going to kill him too?’

  ‘That’s between me and him. Answer the question.’

  ‘Back to his master. Much the richer of course.’

  ‘He’s not yours? Then who is he? And how does he know so much about my armour?’

  Kiltyrin glared. He was used to asking, not answering the questions. ‘He’s Rannoch’s. Duke Rannoch’s head servant and scholar. Like you, he’s spent his entire life researching Scalussen armour. The man is obsessed with it.’

  ‘How did he come to you?’

  Kiltyrin remained silent. Farden waved the knife at him. ‘Your life is conditional on me getting my answers, remember?’

  There was a sigh. ‘Loffrey found some book called the Fable of the Nine, written by somebody called Benton, or Binton, who cares. He became convinced that the Nine were real. So Loffrey went to Rannoch and asked for the coin to mount an expedition to find the armour, all in honour of the Duke of course. All Loffrey wanted was the fame of being the one who uncovered it. Fool. But Rannoch was unimpressed by his ideas. He dubbed it nonsense, so Loffrey came to me instead.’

  ‘Why you?’

  ‘Why not? I’m the richest Duke there is. Everybody owes me something. Loffrey came to me, and I heard him out. I thought he was mad at first, just like old Rannoch, but it cost me little to let him try. I would either reap the benefit, or have him hanged for wasting my time and coin.’

  Farden waved his knife in a circle. ‘So where do I come in?’

  ‘Can’t you figure this out for your…’

  ‘Answer the fucking question,’ the mage snapped.

  ‘Loffrey was here when the Arka messenger came asking for you. A few had come before, but this one seemed desperate. He described you in perfect detail, the cloak, the scars, the red-gold armour you were never seen without. Scalussen, if the messenger wasn’t mistaken…’ The pieces fell into place as Farden listened. ‘Then I remembered what you were wearing the day you came to Wodehallow. I remember thinking nothing of it at the time, thinking it was fake. Then, when Loffrey asked me about your age, your face, it all became obvious. We laid you a trap with that whore and a fake bit of armour, and you took the bait, like the fool you are. And you did me one last favour as well,’ Kiltyrin chuckled. ‘Wodehallow thinks I saved his life. He thinks you were young Duke Leath’s assassin, and that he’s to blame for all these “unfortunate accidents.” My warning saved his
life, and now we’re moving against Leath. Together.’

  Farden didn’t care for the Duke’s political machinations. ‘What whore?’ he asked.

  Kiltyrin spied a weakness. ‘Why Farden, you didn’t know? The blind girl? Oh my. It seems you might not want these answers after all.’

  Thump. Farden’s left fist collided with the other side of Kiltyrin’s jaw. ‘What was her name?’ The betrayal stung, if it was true.

  The Duke winced. His eyes brimmed with hatred as well as tears of pain. ‘Why should I care?’ he barked. ‘She did as she was told.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘She arranged for Loffrey to spy on you while you bedded her, to make sure you had the armour,’ Kiltyrin chuckled. ‘Betrayed you for a bagful of jewels, she did. Just like that.’ He clicked his fingers behind his back.

  It was then that a shout came from behind the door. ‘Your lordship! Is everything alright?!’ Farden whirled around, swearing darkly. He had forgotten to hide the unconscious guards.

  Kiltyrin began to shout. ‘They’re in here! Help!’ he yelled. Farden silenced him with another punch that split his lip even wider. Farden winced as his knuckle grazed one of the man’s teeth.

  ‘Shut it,’ he snapped, but it was too late. The guards had heard their lordship’s cries. Spearbutts and fist and elbows and boots began to hammer on the door.

  Farden strangled the arm of his chair, wracking his brains for a plan. ‘Quickly,’ he shouted to Moirin and Timeon. ‘Get under the bed! Hide!’

  They swiftly did as they were told. Moirin lugged Timeon to his feet and pushed him across the floor. All the while he looked back at his father with a mixture of fear and indignant confusion. Moirin shoved him under the bed, and then followed herself. She couldn’t help but watch wide-eyed from the shadows, like a stray cat in an alleyway.