Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  ‘I’m sure you have,’ grunted Farden, trying to be polite. He took the mage’s hand in his and shook it once. The man beamed.

  ‘A cheer for the Undermage and Farden!’ he announced. He raised his tankard and the whole of the tavern joined him. Modren and Farden nodded their thanks, though Farden felt himself pawing for his hood. Too much attention for a recovering hermit.

  Before the young mage went back to his table, he leant close to Modren and lowered his voice to a murmur. ‘I’m part of the assignment for tomorrow. The Winter Regiment. There’s a lot of talk going ‘round sir. May I ask…’

  ‘That’s quite enough, thank you Bringlin,’ Modren cut him off. He reached into his pocket and brought out a coin, flicking it towards the mage. ‘Why don’t you get your table some ales on me, hmm?’ Modren turned back to the bar, leaving Bringlin to retreat, sheepish, and Farden to wonder.

  ‘What was that about?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Modren shook his head.

  ‘I’m not that drunk, Modren.’

  ‘Told you, it was nothing. Just loose lips in the barracks. You remember.’

  ‘Modren, what’s tomorrow aside from your wedding?’

  The unease slid right back on. Modren put his tankard to his lips and drained the thing. He slammed it back on the bar, wiped his lips, and stepped from his stool. ‘Come. I’ve had enough of this place.’

  Farden scowled, but did as he was told. He gulped down his ale and followed Modren to the door. The whole tavern got to its feet in salute, but the two men barely spared them so much as a wave. Out into the night they went, slamming the door behind them.

  Outside, the air was tinged with a spring frost. The two men paused on the tavern’s steps to take in the night around them, staring up at the sky between the curving rooftops above. The moon was a bright coin rolling lazily across the south. A seagull had missed its bedtime. From a chimney pot, it cried to the frayed lengths of silver cloud splayed across the star-speckled sky.

  ‘What aren’t you telling me?’ asked Farden.

  Modren rubbed his eyes, restoring a little of the clarity the half-dozen ales had stolen from him. ‘Nothing you need to know,’ he sighed. Farden stepped out onto the cobbles so he could face the Undermage. He stumbled into a passer-by as he did so, a young girl with a fountain of black hair and a pale face. Farden mumbled a quick apology to her as she hurried past, nursing a shoulder.

  ‘Sorry,’ he managed.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ she whispered in a soft voice, without turning.

  Farden watched her until she vanished down a nearby alleyway. When he turned back to confront Modren, he found him marching across the cobbles, towards the Arkathedral. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ve already had my fill of secrets from those bastard gods and the others. I don’t wish for any more. Why would you need a regiment of mages at the wedding? What’s going on?’

  Modren stayed silent.

  Farden pressed him. Questions and answers rattled back and forth like heels on the cobbles. ‘What are you worried about?’

  ‘It’s just a precaution.’

  ‘Against what? Her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Don’t play the halfwit. It is her you’re worried about. You think she’s going to attack?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘We don’t. We’re just being cautious.’

  ‘And how does Elessi feel about an army at her wedding?’

  ‘They won’t be… She… It doesn’t matter.’

  Farden hiccuped, and said no more. Modren put a hesitant hand around his bony shoulder as they rounded a corner and came face to face with the Arkathedral. The giant fortress was painted orange and milky silver by the innumerable torches and the moon. ‘How do you feel about her?’

  ‘Who, Elessi, or my… her?’

  ‘Your daughter.’

  There was a pregnant pause as Farden pondered. After the ale, it was like shouting a question into a wall of fog and waiting for an echo. ‘I don’t know,’ came his answer, as the forest of guards stationed at the Arkathedral’s huge gates parted to let them enter.

  Modren took his arm from Farden’s shoulders. ‘What kind of answer is that?’

  ‘A truthful one. I don’t know her. I’ve never even met her.’

  ‘Don’t you realise what she’s been doing, Farden?’ Modren sounded angry.

  Farden stopped dead in his tracks, halfway cross the cavernous atrium. ‘No, apparently I don’t.’

  Modren kept his voice low, but it was tight and seething. ‘She’s killing mages, Farden. Written mages. Skinning the very Books from their backs and then disappearing without so much as an explanation.’

  Farden kept walking, feeling the bite of anger in his stomach. ‘How do you know it’s her?’

  ‘Stories. Witnesses. We’ve followed her trail. Besides, who, or what, could kill so many of our Written with such ease? Where’s your ambivalence now, hmm?’ Modren challenged him. Farden didn’t reply. He scuffed his boots against the marble floor. ‘I thought so. Your girl’s a murderer, Farden. Pure and simple.’

  Farden’s knuckles popped as he clenched his fists. ‘How many?’

  ‘Left or killed?’

  ‘Left.’

  Modren looked wistfully at the ceiling. ‘There’s only twenty-eight of us left now, old friend. All safe and sound behind the city walls, waiting for their revenge. Gods have mercy if she tries anything here.’

  The coin dropped for Farden. ‘Bait,’ he said, making Modren flinch. ‘You’re using the wedding to draw her out, aren’t you?’ It was Farden’s turn to sound angry. It was an all-out play. A gamble. Power for power. Draw her in when they were ready, and see what she was made of. Who cares that it was a wedding.

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about…’

  ‘Does Elessi know?’

  The Undermage began to walk away. Farden raised his voice. He didn’t care about the people around them; guards, servants, mages, residents of the Arkathedral, milling around the atrium like rich folk on market day. ‘Does Elessi know?’ he shouted after Modren, his hoarse voice echoing damningly.

  Modren swivelled on his toe and came marching back. He grabbed Farden by the shoulder and wrenched him close, so close they could share the smell of ale on their breath. ‘You shut your mouth!’ he snapped. He looked around. People were staring.

  ‘Does she know?’

  Modren stared at the floor. ‘She might suspect…’

  Farden spoke slowly, his tone dangerous. ‘Your own wife-to-be, Modren. Your own wedding. Bait for a war. Just a worm on a hook. How fucking noble of you,’ he growled. With a snarl, he shrugged himself free of the tight grip and stormed up the stairs, boots squeaking against the polished marble. Modren had to jog to keep up with him.

  ‘Farden, stop!’

  ‘How dare you use her like this,’ Farden was ranting, looking around for more stairs.

  ‘Stop!’

  ‘You three have gone too far with this. It’s despicable. It’s ridiculous. It’s dangerous and stupid. It’s…’ Farden ran out of adjectives. ‘Where is she?’ he demanded, swaying ever so slightly. He couldn’t deny the wave of nausea that swept through him. The alcoholic numbness he had been so eagerly waiting for had finally began to seep into his bones, but it was making him feel worse, not better. Not now, he told it.

  A strong hand grabbed his arm. ‘If you calm down, I’ll take you to her,’ Modren hissed in his ear.

  ‘You’re damn right you will.’

  Modren pointed in the general direction of up. ‘She’s in our room.’

  Farden waved a hand up the stairs. ‘After you,’ he said.

  Modren muttered something dark to himself and took the stairs two at a time. He led Farden across a short landing, and then up another winding waterfall of marble steps. Up, they strode, further and further into the Arkathedral. The torches and lamps were bein
g snuffed by the servants. The corridors and hallways grew dark as Modren steered Farden towards his wife-to-be. They said nothing. Farden silently fumed and collected his words, while Modren just let the clattering plod of their booted steps form a decision in his mind.

  At long last they came to a lone door at the end of a corridor, deep into the Arkathedral. Farden looked around. A single torch had been left alive at the mouth of the hallway. It threw long shadows across their feet. Modren turned around and crossed his arms. ‘Well,’ he nodded to the door. ‘If you must.’

  ‘Somebody must.’

  ‘She won’t listen to you. In fact, she’ll probably rip you in two with that tongue of hers.’

  ‘If that’s what it takes, so be it.’

  ‘Last chance, Farden.’

  ‘Keep it for somebody else.’

  ‘Stubborn bastard,’ Modren sighed. He put his hand on the doorknob and twisted it. The door opened with a gentle creak and revealed a room even darker than the hallway, full of shadow and dark shapes. Farden pushed past Modren and into the room.

  ‘Elessi?’ he called.

  Click.

  The mage was plunged into utter darkness. There was a creak as a spell spread across the door and sealed it tight. Farden hammered at it with his fists, but it felt like he was clobbering a stone wall, not wood. ‘Modren!’ he yelled. ‘MODREN!’

  Farden felt his way around in the darkness for something solid. A flimsy crate, a bundle of cloth, a pole… a pole! Farden snatched at it. It felt sturdy enough, solid wood. He felt his way back to the door and began to jab at it as viciously as he could. It was hopeless. The pole lasted for three hits before the spell snapped it in two. Farden tossed the splintered halves into the darkness and began to hammer the door with his fists again. He was about as useful as the pole.

  Something in Modren’s spell punched him, spun him around, and tossed him to the floor. There was a flash of light as his head hit the cold marble. Pain populated the darkness before his rolling eyes, filling it with faces and swirling teeth. Farden gasped, desperately dizzy. He could feel the ale swimming in his blood. His head pounded through its numbness. His stomach tightened. His body had given up.

  ‘Fine,’ he spat, bile rising, head wet with blood. ‘You win.’

  Farden had just enough time to vomit before the unconsciousness swallowed him.

  Modren rubbed his eyes with his fingers and trudged back up the hallway. The ale was creeping into him too, making his steps and eyelids heavy. He sighed, but it was a sigh of resentful satisfaction. The right thing had been done. No woman, especially Elessi, deserved to be told that their wedding was a sham, even if it was the truth. Elessi would have her wedding. He would make her his wife. Modren would make sure of that. He put his hands in his pockets and let out a low, troubled whistle.

  Somebody whistled back at him. Modren turned to see a woman leaning up against a window, framed against the orange of the city. She was wrapped in a blanket and borrowed clothes, sandy-haired, the sort of figure a man’s eyes can’t help but wander over, no matter if his wedding was in the morning or not. It was the woman Farden had brought back with him. He had seen her earlier at the dreaded council meeting.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in your chambers?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you?’

  Modren approached her, holding out a hand. ‘Modren,’ he offered.

  She didn’t take it at first. She just stared at him, or past him, Modren couldn’t tell in the dark. Damn this shortage of torches, he thought.

  It was only when she reached out her own hand that he remembered she was blind. ‘Jeasin,’ she said. It was hard not to notice the familiar tinge of Albion in her accent. ‘I like how quiet it is here,’ she said.

  Modren nodded, gazing out at the city. ‘Let’s hope it stays that way,’ he said.

  ‘After what I ‘eard today, in your council, chances are slim.’

  ‘Aren’t they just?’

  Jeasin ran a hand through her hair. Modren squinted. He swore he recognised her from somewhere. ‘You seen Farden?’ she asked.

  Modren looked back down the corridor. ‘Not a whisker,’ he lied.

  The woman sniffed. ‘Figures. Still managed to ‘bandon me, even though he promised.’

  ‘Shall I walk you back to your room?’

  ‘Probably for the best, seein’ as I don’t know the way.’

  She held out an arm, and stiffly let Modren guide her away. ‘You a mage like Farden?’ she asked, feeling the armour around his wrists.

  Modren smiled. ‘Yes, but nobody’s like Farden,’ he muttered, and she nodded, as if that made the most perfect sense in the world.

  Chapter 22

  “Krauslung was founded with blood and sea-water, and it will end in the same manner.”

  Words from the scholar Lasti, who was scribe to the Arkmage Los

  A hesitant morning. Mists rose from the sewer-grates and punch-holes in the gutters. Steam lingered around the maws of drainpipes. Windows had steamed in the dawn. People were yawning and stretching in their beds. The night had been long for some, shorter for others. Groups were still being carted off to the prisons for their riotous persuasions. Malvus’ allies, it seemed, were many, and already the preachers were dusting off their boxes and robes for another day ahead.

  Beneath all of this, lost in the winding, forgotten tunnels of the sewer system, in the kingdom of sludge and rats, crouched a figure in the dark. Dead rat eyes swivelled. A sliver of grey tongue spoke, yet it did not move. Claws clutched and clasped with no muscles behind them.

  ‘Ssssssssswe feel it…’ said the voice of many, hissing from the chest of the dead rat. ‘The day is finally here.’

  A nod from the figure, not a sound for concentration. A hot storm brewed in that sewer, in the heart of the girl. The steam rising from around her, rising up into the city above, was its proof. Its herald. She could barely contain her power.

  ‘Are you ready?’ wheezed the rat.

  Silence but for the dripping.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  A tight smile this time. ‘More than I’ll ever be.’

  ‘Then let the dead stars fall.’

  Somebody else was smiling. Actually, beaming was probably more accurate. Elessi’s cheeks ached as she stared out from her window on the southern flank of the dew-clad Arkathedral.

  The chambermaids pulled the last string tight on the corset and stood back to admire their work. Elessi glimpsed at the mirror. ‘How does it look?’ she asked, as though she didn’t trust her reflection.

  ‘Wonderful, miss,’ chorused the girls, an inch away from an eruption of giggling. Elessi turned to face the mirror and smoothed down the ruffles in the dress with her hands. It was a gold dress, as tradition stated, with white panels in the skirts for dancing. Beside her lay the long box in which it had been delivered. Underneath the wreckage of a torn paper ribbon was a note, written in green ink:

  For Elessi, on your wedding day,

  Durnus and Tyrfing.

  Elessi smiled at herself once again. She had never imagined this day, and this dress, would ever come. Many a thousand long nights of wistful staring out of windows had led to this, and a thousand miles of travel too. She didn’t care that the bastard Farden had returned. She didn’t care for the riots, the turmoil below. They all paled. This was her wedding day. She would have it, if even for a few moments. She would have her mage.

  There came a knock at the door, and one of the maids went to answer it. As soon as she opened it, she flinched and tried to shut it again, but an arm had already wedged itself between it and the frame. ‘It’s bad luck!’ cried the maid.

  Elessi turned and saw the arm, wrapped in polished, mirror-like armour. ‘Modren! Don’t you dare! Go away,’ she cried, quickly retreating behind the door.

  ‘I don’t want to see you,’ he said, abruptly realising how bad that sounded. ‘I mean… I have a little gift that I thought you might want.’ Another hand came through the crack in the door, this
time holding a tiny blue flower shaped like a bell in its fingers. ‘Springknell,’ he said, in as deep a voice as possible, a voice that wasn’t used to wrapping around the names of flowers. ‘Thought it might go well with your dress.’

  Elessi rolled her eyes and blushed at her maids. ‘What are the guards going to think when they see their fearsome Undermage deliverin’ pretty little flowers to his wife-to-be?’

  ‘They’re none the wiser. I hid it under my cloak,’ laughed the voice behind the door.

  ‘Away with you!’ she ordered, smiling as one of her maids passed the flower to her. It fit neatly into the hem of her dress.

  ‘Until later,’ he said, and the door was swiftly shut.

  Elessi went eagerly back to the mirror. The maids brought her a chair and then began to arrange and tame her curly locks. Elessi folded her hands on her lap. She would have her wedding.

  Modren checked his armour one last time. Today he was a soldier made of mirrors and polished plates. Tyrfing had truly outdone himself with this suit. It had all the beauty and grace of ceremonial armour, but beneath its engraved curves and polish it had all the impenetrable strength of a granite cliff face. It veritably hummed with power and shield spells. Part of him silently prayed that today would only demand its ceremonial side.

  Modren began his walk to Manesmark. There was a window open somewhere on that level, and it had let a breeze loose in the corridors. It was a brisk thing, and it felt good on his hands and neck and face. It ruffled his combed hair and toyed with his green-black cloak as he walked.

  As he passed a brace of guards, they clacked their spears on the marble flagstones and saluted. ‘Undermage! Best of luck.’

  Funny, how men offered luck, whilst women offered congratulations. Modren smiled and saluted them with a twirl of his hands. ‘I’ll need it,’ he chuckled, drily. We’ll all need it.

  There was a checklist in his head, and his thoughts were a quill, mentally scratching a dark line of ink through each task and chore. His armour was on. The flower had been delivered. Elessi was getting ready. The Winter Regiment was in place. The Evernia guard had been moved. The Arkathedral guard were busy locking down the fortress. The newly-formed Halfangar Regiments were in disguise and should be ready. The bellringers were stationed by their bells. The Written were arranging themselves around Krauslung’s gate and Manesmark. Tyrfing and Durnus were heading to the Spire. Done, done, done… the orders rattled off in his mind like slingstones in a cave.