by Matthew Ward
Moments bled into minutes, the passage metered by each leaden footstep, but made uncertain by her contact with the timeflow. It was the longest she’d ever spent submerged in the ticking of the Clock – her past excursions had been brief, necessarily so once the truth about Azzanar had emerged. The world took on an unfamiliar beauty, the ruddy sheen of its altered state a match for the pounding behind her eyes.
At last, Yelen glimpsed the sight she’d longed and dreaded to see. Mirika stood at the Nereta’s edge, the time walker’s robe a bloody slash against the snow. Bare feet on the edge of the embankment’s rampart, she stared out across the waters, face hidden by coils of unbraided hair whipping back and forth in the wind.
‘Mirika!’ Yelen screamed the word, her voice raw from worry and from the cold. ‘It’s me!’
Her sister didn’t turn, didn’t give any sign of having heard. But even the sight of her gave Yelen fresh strength. Setting her shoulders against the wind, she forged on.
‘I saw Torik! He told me what he tried to do! Let me help!’
No response.
‘I know you can hear me!’
At last, Mirika turned. Her eyes were black as the abyss, her expression taut, like she sought to remember something long since forgotten. Golden light pulsed beneath her pale skin, its brilliance rising and falling with the fury of the storm. In her hands, clasped tight to her chest, was the orb.
‘Be gone.’
Yelen’s heart caught in her throat. The voice was her sister’s, and yet not. Something else resonated between the words, like fingers scratched across a chalkboard, or a terrified, dying screech. Some distortion caused by the clash of their disparate timeflows? The cold, writhing sensation in Yelen’s guts told her otherwise.
‘No! I’ve come this far. I’m not going back without you.’ She extended a shaking hand. ‘Please. Don’t leave me!’
Mirika’s expression shifted. No longer remote and confused, but tinged with heartbreak. ‘Yelen?’ Her voice was her own again, free of influence. ‘I’m already gone.’
Without another word, she stepped off the edge of the embankment.
‘No!’
Yelen threw herself forward, hands clutching for a hand, an arm – a fistful of robe. They closed on nothing but air.
She fell to her hands and knees on the embankment’s edge, already knowing her sister was lost to the Nereta’s inky waters, lapping at the ice-sheeted stones, twenty feet below. Except there were no waters, just sheeted ice, its angular tendrils creeping across the river. At their head already a dozen paces away, Mirika marched across the frozen crests, arrow-straight for the distant bank.
‘Mirika!’
The snows swirled again, and she was gone.
‘No!’ Yelen tried to scramble upright. She slipped sideways into the snow, her knee cracking against stone.
‘She’s gone, poppet.’
Yelen shook her head so violently her neck creaked. ‘No. I can still follow.’ Gaining her footing, she peered over the edge, gauging the distance.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll break both legs jumping down. And that’s if you don’t plunge straight through the ice.’
‘I don’t care! Don’t you get it? She’s my sister.’
Far below, the river ice darkened, dissolving once again into the Nereta that had given it birth. At once, the storm lost its potency, the howling wind dropping almost to nothing. The clouds parted, and the long-banished moonlight flowed across the virgin snows.
‘It’s done, poppet. Let her go.’
* * *
The temperature had risen with the storm’s departure, but Yelen barely felt it. She had no eyes for her surroundings, nor the prickling pain as feeling returned to her extremities. There was only the leaden ache in her chest. With every step, it threatened to drag her down. She wanted to let it, but kept walking anyway – one sullen, sluggish step after the other, trudging steadily into the heart of Rekamark.
There’d been no point returning to the Guttered Candle. What the freak storm hadn’t levelled, the snow had buried – Yelen had seen that much from a distance. Endri Torik lay sealed beneath the ruins of his home like a latter-day king in a barrow, a treacherous corpse surrounded by the treasures he’d possessed in life. There was no shelter to be had there, nor warmth, and even lost in her fug of grief and hopelessness, Yelen would need both if she wasn’t to join the old man in the frozen hells. So instead she let her feet guide her on for what seemed an eternity, what few wits she had remaining locked in a vicious cycle of grief.
The tick of the Clock of Ages slipped from her mind as she walked the empty alleys, the world losing its ruddy hue as her tempo snapped by into sync. Azzanar either no longer had the strength to sustain their place within the timeflow, or no longer cared to do so. Yelen didn’t ask. The longer the demon stayed quiet, the better she liked it.
Yelen longed for sleep. Every aching muscle begged her to sit for a moment, regather her flagging strength, but she didn’t dare. She knew that if she closed her eyes, even for a moment, she’d never open them again.
But where to find help? There was no shortage of doors upon which to knock – at least, now she’d left the riverfront behind – but the knack lay in knocking on the right one. Choose poorly, and Yelen knew she’d be floating in the Nereta’s waters come morning, throat slit ear to ear.
Her thoughts coalesced like molten treacle, urged on by the percussive crunch of feet in the snow. Azra had a squat somewhere over on the north side. He’d help her, assuming he were sober – which he probably wasn’t. Who did that leave? Selsa the apothecary? His shop was considered neutral territory by most of Rekamark’s squabbling gangs. Yelen nodded to herself. Yes. Selsa. She’d have to pay, but he’d accept a debt of service – his apprentices kept signing on with delver-gangs, too eager for adventure.
‘What have we here?’
Yelen’s heart sank as she turned to face the speaker. He sat on the rubble beneath a lopsided archway, itself the sole survivor of a long ago collapse. She didn’t know the face, but she did recognize the angular spider-brand on his cheek. Another of Flintine’s gang. Ordinarily, that would be bad enough. Today? After what had happened to Kardish…?
‘I want no trouble.’ Yelen almost didn’t recognize her own voice, it was so raw and cracked.
Scratching his bald pate, the man rose to his feet. ‘You hear that, Tan? She doesn’t want trouble.’
A burly woman emerged from a shadowed corner across the street. ‘Should’ve thoughta that before dusting Mister Flintine’s favourite lieutenant this afternoon, shouldn’t she?’
‘Loved him like a son, so I hear.’ The man paused. ‘Or at least enough to offer a thousand crowns for whoever brings him one of the killers in consolation. Guess we’re lucky to have found you first.’
Yelen knew she should be scared, but she’d no emotion left to spare for a couple of street-stalkers. She’d a good idea what Flintine had in store – a slit throat was the least of it – but could she really say anything to change her fate? ‘I didn’t kill him.’
The man slid two curved swords from their shoulder-sheaths, and spun them lazily about his wrists. ‘Then you can tell Mister Flintine. He likes a good story, doesn’t he, Tan?’
The woman rolled her eyes. ‘On occasion. Stop playing with her, Garth. It’s been a long, cold night.’ She shifted her gaze to Yelen and unlooped a small, vicious cudgel from her belt. ‘You are coming quietly, aren’t you?’
Yelen sighed. She could scream her lungs out. Someone would hear, but no one would come. You were on your own in Rekamark after dark. What did it matter anyway? What did any of it matter anymore? Better a queen of the damned than a servant of the chaste. ‘Help me,’ she said simply.
Garth halted a pace away, beetle-brow knotting in confusion. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said, “Help.” As in, “You win, I’m asking for your help.”’
‘You what?’
Tan squinted as she drew nearer. �
�She’s touched, that’s what she is.’
Yelen gritted her teeth. ‘It’s very simple. I need your help. Now are you going to give it, or not?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Were you talking to me?’
At last, thought Yelen. ‘Of course I’m talking to you.’
‘Mister Flintine’s not going to have much fun with this one.’ Tan shook her head. ‘Reckon she’s had one knock too many.’
Azzanar snorted. ‘Sorry. Not in the mood. Maybe you’ll remember that next time you threaten me.’
Yelen couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘They’re going to kill me! Us!’
‘Not yet they’re not. The beating comes first, but I won’t feel a thing. Consider this a lesson in manners.’
Something inside Yelen snapped. She didn’t care anymore. Let them do their worst. Let Azzanar think she’d won. What did it matter? Mirika was gone. ‘Fine. Get it over with.’
‘Thanks,’ said Garth, sarcasm dripping from the word.
‘Step away, Garth! She’s coming with us.’
The newcomer’s voice came from back along Yelen’s stumbling path. She recognized the sharp, waylander’s edge to the woman’s syllables, but her cold-addled brain couldn’t place why. It wasn’t until the woman drew close enough for the moonlight to reveal the shock of blonde hair and the worn eyepatch that realization dawned.
‘Back off Serene!’ Tan stepped to block her path. ‘We saw her first.’
‘That’s nice. She’s still coming with us.’
In response, Tan closed a meaty hand around Yelen’s upper arm. ‘Us? Way I remember it, you lost an eye the last time you went two against one in a fight.’
Serene laughed – a thin, dry sound wholly lacking in humour. She crossed her hands behind her back, the movement setting the tails of her greatcoat dancing. ‘Yeah, but Danno and Rosk lost more than that, didn’t they? Who would you rather be? Me, or them?’
Yelen watched dully as the two women squared off. Now the Gilded Rose wanted her too? She decided she’d rather take her chances with Magnis than Flintine. Not that it was her choice. Not while she was in Tan’s vice-like grip.
Garth stepped past her, and tapped Serene in the chest with a sword point. ‘Last chance, Serene.’
The one-eyed woman nodded. ‘I was thinking the same thing.’ She raised her voice. ‘Kas?’
The whistle and thud came as one – a fraction before Garth’s bellow of pain and the soft thud of his sword striking the ground. He spun away, the black shaft of an arrow protruding from his shoulder. Yelen winced as Tan tightened her grip, but glimpsed the archer, all the same. He sat perched in an otherwise-empty first floor window above and behind Serene, another arrow already nocked to his bow.
Serene shrugged, hands still clasped behind her back. ‘Thanks, Kas,’ she called. ‘Put the next one in his eye, would you?’
‘Left or right?’ Kas’ languid drawl echoed up the street. Southern as the blazing sun, it was hopelessly out of place in the frozen night.
The archer who’d been with Magnis’ gang in the tomb?
Serene leaned in close to Tan. So close, that Yelen was treated to a lungful of her greatcoat’s musty stench. ‘What do you reckon, Tan? Left…’ She ducked a little to the side, ostensibly giving her partner a clearer shot. ‘… or right?’ Serene ducked to the other side. ‘Or maybe we’ll just call this a friendly misunderstanding and go our separate ways?’
‘Misunderstanding?’ Garth staggered upright, face mottled with pain and fury. ‘I’ll show you a misunderstanding.’
An arrow struck the ground a foot or so immediately to his front, sending a small spray of snow into the air.
‘Sorry!’ called Kas. ‘Slipped. Next one goes in his eye.’
Tan, evidently quicker on the uptake than her partner, let go of Yelen’s arm and intercepted Garth while a crippled arm was the worst of his woes.
‘Leave it, Garth. They can have her. Not like we don’t know where she’ll be, is it?’
Tan spat at Serene’s feet, retrieved Garth’s fallen sword and looped an arm beneath his shoulders. Yelen watched them shuffle away through the snow, fighting a fresh onset of weariness.
‘Thanks.’
Serene grinned. ‘Don’t thank me yet, love. Cavril wants a word, and you’ve a lot of explaining to do.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘Mirika!’
Yelen stat bolt upright, bedsheets spilling away. Wakefulness came slowly. The memory of cold clung to her bones, accompanied by the dull, muffled pain of ill-treated joints. The half-remembered nightmare faded, her pulse dwindling alongside.
The soft lantern-light and the crackle of the smoky fire drove out the last traces of cold, but raised new questions. This wasn’t her room. It wasn’t even the Guttered Candle. The stone walls hung with tapestries, the flagstones were lost beneath piled furs. The wooden door sat square within its frame, something those in the Guttered Candle had never managed. The chamber possessed a luxuriousness that Torik had never embraced, much less permitted Yelen to partake of. A faint aroma hung on the air, sour and herbal. The cause of her grogginess? Had she been drugged? Was that why her memories ended with Serene’s hand on her arm?
Memory separated from the cocoon of dream. Yelen bunched the bedclothes beneath her fists. It was all true. Mirika. Torik. The Guttered Candle. Flintine’s thugs. She felt sick. How many times since leaving Karamasz had she wondered how her life could get any worse? Now she knew.
What time was it? There were no windows, no trace of the sky outside. An hour could have passed, or a day. Did it matter? Mirika was gone. Yes, Yelen told herself firmly. It mattered. The Gilded Rose – for presumably it was they who had her – didn’t know she was awake. Assuming they stayed ignorant, she might yet slip away. But to where? Her life, such it as it had been, was gone. Return to Karamasz, perhaps? Rekamark – indeed, Frostgrave had a whole – had offered her little before. It promised nothing now. But what of Mirika?
Yelen recalled the dead look in her sister’s eyes as she’d stepped off the embankment. Lost. Hopeless. Could Mirika be helped? Even saved? Yelen doubted it, and hated herself for doing so. But the situation was too similar to her own to hold out much hope. If Torik had spoken true, the long-dead Szarnos now wore Mirika’s body much as Azzanar sought to occupy Yelen’s own flesh. Was there any coming back from that? Yelen didn’t know – she’d bent all of her thoughts to ensuring that her own transformation never came about, and never once thought to enquire if it could be reversed. And even if it could, what hope did she have of finding Mirika? The frozen city was vast, below ground as well as above. She could search a lifetime, and still not find her. And that was assuming she didn’t end up a feast for wolves, trolls or others of Frostgrave’s hungry denizens. Were their situations reversed, Yelen wouldn’t have wanted Mirika to take that risk.
Remorse crowded the back of Yelen’s throat. She choked back a sob. It helped nothing to think that way. Not while she was the ‘guest’ of the Gilded Rose. One step at a time. Get out. Get clear. Then decide what to do.
Given strength by renewed purpose, Yelen swung her feet out of the bed. Belatedly, she realised that the nightgown wasn’t hers any more than was the room. She stared down at her feet. They were pinkish and tender, though that wasn’t any great surprise after her barefoot trek through the storm. Indeed, she’d been fortunate not to have lost extremities – but there they were, all ten toes a match for her ten fingers.
The lack of clothes, though, that presented a problem. Assuming she could get outside, a young woman in a nightgown tended to attract entirely the wrong manner of attention. And that was if Yelen had any intention of roaming Rekamark without boots and coat, which she didn’t. That left precisely one option, though she hated to take it.
‘Are you there?’ she asked softly.
There was no reply. Not even a breathy chuckle.
‘Come on, I know you’re listening.’
Still nothing. Yelen shook her head in dis
gust. All this time, she’d longed for a little privacy and now, when she needed Azzanar’s help, the demon was nowhere to be found.
Perhaps she was free of the creature? No. She couldn’t be that fortunate. Besides, there was still the slight taste of sulphur at the back of her mouth. Azzanar was still there. And if she wasn’t talking, it probably meant she was sulking, if demons did such things.
Yelen took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Well, that was gracious.’ Sarcasm dripped from the demon’s every word.
‘You’re a demon. I don’t think you get to quibble about grace, or lack thereof. You should be glad I’m prepared to talk to you at all.’
‘Oh I am, poppet. I can’t wait for you to bark some more orders at me. Shut up! Help! Fetch! Beg! It fulfils me in ways I can’t even begin to describe.’ Azzanar paused, her sense coiling and shifting as she embraced her theme. ‘It’s like the good old days, before the war. Before the fall. Know your place. Keep to your instructions. I didn’t choose any of this, you know. I can’t help what I am.’ Her tone, ordinarily so strident, grew pitiful. ‘I have feelings too…’
Yelen winced. ‘I’m… Wait. No. I refuse to feel sorry for you. You’re not the victim here. I am.’
‘Oh well,’ Azzanar’s sense performed the mental equivalent of a shrug. ‘It was worth a try, don’t you think?’
She sounded disgustingly pleased with herself. From morose to malice in an eye blink. Not that it changed anything, much as Yelen wished it were otherwise.
‘I need…’
The door opened, admitting Serene, a heavy bundle tight in her hands. The greatcoat was gone, granting full view of the tattered open-necked shirt and threadbare grey trews. Her appearance, unkempt as ever, was a poor match for the room’s opulence, but she moved with that familiar confidence, giving the impression that her every action, her every gesture, had been planned out in advance. Yelen envied her that. Especially now.
