by Ben Galley
Hokus looked to his brother. Malvus could tell they were trading words, silently, in the way that he knew Sirens and their dragons did. It thoroughly unnerved him. After a long and sweaty silence, Valefor winked, and thrust out a black, soot-smeared hand towards the man. ‘I believe it is customary for mortals to shake hands on the making of a deal?’ he asked.
Malvus nodded hesitantly. The hand was huge. It looked as though it were made of leather, or stone, or both. The claws that waited patiently at the end of it shone dully in the torchlight like burnt steel. He smiled politely, stalling. The daemon’s easy smile was worrying. Just do it, he told himself. It’s just a hand. A daemon’s hand, but a hand nonetheless. Shake the damn thing. Claim your destiny, as the seer told you. Malvus reached out to grasp it.
He barely noticed the pain at first, as Valefor gripped him tightly.
Burns tended to be like that.
Jeasin made sure to shut the door as loudly as she could. She felt for the wall and hugged it, hoping the darkness of the building or the shadow of the stairs would hide her. She held her breath and waited for the silence to end.
‘A blind pet,’ said one of the strange voices, deep, dangerous, and muffled by the breeze.
‘We mortals have our needs,’ said a smaller voice. Malvus. Slippery in his tone. She clenched and let her tongue weave a little curse behind them.
‘You were saying, Barkhart?’ said the other voice. Jeasin suppressed a deep shiver at the sound of it. It was a voice that almost made her glad to be blind. She didn’t have to see the sort of beast that uttered it. She knew it was hideous, unearthly. She shivered again and felt her skin crawl. She’d already heard enough. She knew what these creatures had come for.
Gentler than a spider’s touch, Jeasin felt for the handle again and stepped inside the tower. She let the door hang ajar, trading the danger of it slamming in the breeze with the risk of trying to shut it quietly. Her feet slapped the marble as she practically flew down the steps to the great hall. She was halfway through the door when the hand caught her.
‘Whoa!’ gasped the voice. A man’s voice. He was surprised, whoever he was. Jeasin wriggled like a fish in his grip.
‘Get yer ‘ands off me!’ Jeasin hissed venomously.
The hand relaxed and let her be. ‘It’s General Toskig, ma’am. My apologies. Old habits,’ said the general, bowing ever so slightly. She could hear his armour clank and the leather squeak.
‘Odd habits, if’n you ask me. Do you often go grabbin’ at ladies at night, hmm?’ Jeasin demanded.
‘Not usually ma’am. You startled me. Had I known you were Malvus’ woman…’
Jeasin wrinkled her nose, as if a bad smell had bothered it. ‘I’m nobody’s woman,’ she uttered.
Toskig nodded, feeling uncomfortable. ‘My apologies again,’ he said. ‘It’s all still a little bit confusing at the moment, isn’t it?’
‘Hmph,’ was all Jeasin could say, as she tried to move past him.
‘Where are you going?’ Toskig asked.
Jeasin jabbed a finger in the direction of the doors. ‘Our friends are in trouble.’
Toskig winced. ‘I told you the last time…’
‘I ain’t askin’ you to help, soldier. I’m askin’ you to get out of my way.’
Toskig looked as if he was going to grab her again, but instead he left his hand hovering in mid-air, unsure of itself. ‘I can’t let you…’
‘He’s going to kill ‘em, Toskig.’
Toskig clenched the dangling hand. ‘He wouldn’t dare.’
‘He’s darin’ right now. Heard it myself.’
‘That is too far,’ hissed Toskig. He found himself torn, like old parchment in greedy hands. Old loyalty clashed with new loyalty inside him.
‘Like I said, Toskig, I ain’t askin’ you to help. Jus’ to keep quiet,’ she said. ‘Seems to me you and I are in the same position.’ Toskig just nodded. Jeasin prodded him in the chest, and he slowly moved aside. ‘You ‘old your tongue. I’ll ‘old mine. Deal?’
Toskig lowered his head. He couldn’t even meet the eyes of a blind girl. ‘Deal.’
Jeasin darted for the door, hands wildly flailing in front of her. She had learnt her way around the Arkathedral pretty quickly. The Arka liked their wide corridors and their grandiose halls. Made a difference from damp stairwells and narrow alleys. Despite the slimy company, Jeasin was beginning to take a shine to this sort of lifestyle.
And that was the reason why she hated herself at that moment. Pissing it all away again, she told herself, as she manhandled the great doors open. The sound of her feet on the cobbles let her know how the corridor twisted and turned. It was empty, by its silence.
Pissing your luck up the wall, as one of her old customers had once daintily put it. That was exactly what she was doing. She’d thought that giving them the papers would have been the end of it, but the old blind man had wanted more. She’d agreed to help, for some strange reason. Jeasin grumbled. She had wormed her way into a position of comfort, somehow at the side of a powerful new ruler, and here she was, racing to liberate one of his most prized possessions. An old Arkmage, who’d had the decency to show her some kindness one evening. Kindness she hadn’t tasted in a long time. As she ran, she counted the times in her life she had felt such acceptance, such welcome, in so few words. She flicked out a finger, then two, and shook her head. ‘Damn it all,’ she spat, as her hands found a bannister.
‘Elessi, I know you can hear me. I don’t have to ask. I know somewhere, deep…’ Modren grit his teeth as they chattered. He closed his eyes and pleaded. ‘… just come home. Please.’
The Undermage was cradling his wife’s head in his weary arms. He hadn’t moved in hours. He had just sat there, whispering quiet words to her here and there. Modren’s face was dusty and streaked with the path of tears. He had never fancied himself a man for crying. Then again, he had never thought himself a man for love, nor a wife either. Time, that great changer of all. He just hoped he had enough of it left.
‘Durnus,’ he said, in a cracked voice.
‘Mm?’ came the distracted reply. Durnus was sitting in one of the corners of the cell with his back to the wall. He was looking up at the ceiling, either utterly engrossed by something or politely pretending he was. Modren suspected the latter.
‘Do you, er…’ Modren faltered. ‘Do you want to say anything to her?’
Durnus snapped out of his trance and looked at the mage. Modren was too tired to wonder how he was staring directly at him.
‘I would not know what to say, Modren.’
Modren pulled a hurt face. ‘Surely you can think of something. She needs to hear voices to keep her awake, and she’s known yours longer than mine.’
Durnus cleared his throat. ‘I cannot think of…’
Modren cut him off. ‘Well, think harder. Surely you have something to say after all these years?’ he demanded. Durnus looked decidedly uncomfortable. It took him a while to answer, letting Modren cool a little.
‘I shall say it to her when she is standing in front of me. Alive and well. Is that better?’
Modren nodded. His voice was very small. ‘Say that. Tell her that,’ he said, and Durnus shuffled slowly over. They both had gone two days without food, giving it all to Elessi. Now, even despite their spells, their muscles were beginning to cramp and stiffen.
‘Elessi, I…’ he began. He was very conscious how quiet and expectant it was between his words. He had never been good at these sorts of things. Usually it took a few wines to loosen his tongue, or a bit of anger, but he was fresh out of both in that dank hole of a cell. Fortunately, he was interrupted by Jeasin.
‘This all sounds very bloody sentimental,’ she hissed between the bars of the door, ‘but you ain’t got time for it. You need to go. Now.’
‘I appreciate your fervour, Jeasin, but if you remember rightly, we’re waiting on a certain Old Dragon.’
‘No, you don’t understand. Malvus is up to even more than
what you said. He’s got visitors, and they’ve been talkin’ about you.’
‘Visitors?’ asked Durnus.
Jeasin nodded. ‘Visitors, and they don’t sound human to me. Deep-voiced things. Smell like…’
Durnus cut in. ‘Like sulphur,’ he guessed.
Jeasin just shrugged. ‘Smelled like rotten egg, to me.’
Modren piped up. ‘Are we sure it wasn’t just Malvus?’ he asked, with a roll of his eyes.
‘I should have known. I knew I could feel something. They are shielding themselves well.’
‘Who?’ asked Modren.
‘What?’ asked Jeasin.
‘The daemons,’ he said. My flesh and blood, he silently added.
Jeasin pressed her face against the cold bars. ‘Well, Malvus made ‘imself a deal for his safety, and guess who’s the payment?’
‘I am.’
‘Right you are.’
Durnus didn’t look surprised by that. ‘Clever man,’ he said.
‘Where is that bastard dragon when you need him?’
‘You hear Grintt and the boys got duty in the banquet hall?’
‘Mhm,’ came the reply.
A sigh. ‘Think of all those women, mate.’
‘Mhm.’
‘Had a servant girl waiting for me too, I did.’
A grunt this time.
‘Bet Grintt will be all over her like a rash.’
Not even a grunt now.
‘Don’t say much do you?’ All he got was a shrug. ‘Just my luck. Guard duty with a mute.’
The guard knocked his spearbutt against the toe of his boot while he looked out at the glowing city, wrapped as it was in its evening finery or orange torchlight and moonless darkness. The mountains in the distance were like black teeth gnawing at a charcoal sky.
The guard rested his face against the cold window and misted the glass with his breath. Raising a lazy finger, he began to draw, his fingertip squeaking. He was halfway through a raunchy sketch of a certain naked servant girl when something dark flashed across the lights of the city below. Something fast. Something big.
‘Hey, you see that?’ he flinched, stabbing the window with his finger. He cupped his hands around his face and pressed his nose against the glass, peering into the night. Nothing.
‘Mm?’ mumbled his comrade.
The first guard’s eyes lingered on the rooftops and tiles for a moment longer. Still nothing. The guard sniffed and scratched his cheek. ‘Nothing. Just a trick of the torchlight,’ he said, as he went back to his sketch. His breath had already faded. His naked servant girl had become nothing but a set of greasy smears. The guard wiped her away with his hand, and that was when he saw it.
Something fast. Something big. A monster of a great golden dragon, plummeting from the sky like a falcon, jaws wide and grinning, its throat already glowing orange as the fire in its belly began to build.
‘By Evernia’s t…!’ the guard gasped, spear clattering to the floor. The rest of his sentence died with him.
The fire exploded through the window and swallowed the corridor whole. Boiling, swirling, clouds of flame, blinding in the peaks of their yellows, bloody in their chasms of crimson. White marble blackened in seconds. The guards were seared to the bone, their armour melted, hair charred, lungs aflame. The fire surged on, hungry for the cells.
The noise came first, the roar of devouring flame and the smash of broken glass. Then the heat, prickly, stoking fear. Then the wind as the air rushed to meet the wall of flame pouring down the corridors.
Jeasin threw herself into an alcove as the blistering surge slammed into the cell door. Modren and Durnus could be heard shouting over the deafening roar.
‘Get down!’ yelled the Arkmage, recoiling from the door. The iron hinges were already beginning to glow. The door began to squeal, lock spells splintering. Modren threw himself over Elessi as Durnus held back as much of the heat as he could bear.
The Arkathedral prisons were bound with spells written to fight magick itself, to deflect it and crush it. They are some of the strongest spells known to man, designed to hold back mages, Written, even Arkmages, should the need ever rise. Magick is useless against them. Utterly and purely. But dragon-fire?
Everything crumbles before that.
The lock spells snapped, and the door began to crumble with them, their death throes tearing the wood and metal apart splinter by splinter. Durnus pushed forward, squeezing the fire into a maelstrom of heat to melt the metal bolts from the stone. His boots were melting on the hot stone. His robes were beginning to smoke. ‘Modren!’ he cried, as the door sagged and split. Modren dragged Elessi to her feet as gently as he could manage. He winced as he felt the searing heat on his face. Durnus kept pushing.
As they fought their way into the corridor the flames began to die and recede. Cold air rushed into the blackened warren of cells. Through the smoke they could see charred bodies littering the doorways, splayed up against the walls, mere lumps of charcoal. They could hear bells over the dying flames.
‘Jeasin?’ Durnus yelled, letting his spell die away.
‘Here!’ came a coughing. Durnus threw out a hand and Jeasin came tumbling out of an alcove, clothes half burnt from her back. Her skin was a scorched crimson. She’d been lucky.
‘Next time I see that fuckin’ mage I’ll strangle ‘im for gettin’ me into this mess!’ she was spitting.
‘Come on!’ yelled Modren. The bells were tolling frantically now, competing with a new sound, the screeching roar of marble being ripped apart and tossed into the sky. Of dragons and frantic claws.
Skidding on soot and charred bodies, they burst into the main corridor, and found a golden dragon grappling with what was left of a marble wall. His claws were painted with white dust. Flame still flickered around his bared teeth. Screams and roars filled the night. Three other dragons flapped behind him, spitting flame and fending off arrows.
‘Durnus!’ Towerdawn boomed, almost deafening them. ‘It’s time to leave!’
‘That it is, Old Dragon!’
‘Climb aboard!’ Towerdawn forced the edge of his mighty wing into the corridor, and the mages clambered aboard as quickly as their weak limbs let them.
Once Elessi was safe, Modren turned to Jeasin, hand held out for her to grab. Towerdawn was slowly losing his footing. Arrows clattered off his head. ‘Jeasin! Come on!’ shouted the mage, but Jeasin wasn’t moving. She stood in a circle of rubble, staring about wildly. Her keen ears could hear the sounds of guards and soldiers running to them. She bit her lip. Her new world was crumbling like the corridor.
‘No,’ she said, backing away. Pissing your luck up the wall. The phrase ran through her mind over and over again. No. She could still turn this around. ‘I’m stayin’ here!’
‘You’re what?’
Jeasin waved her hands. ‘I’m stayin’ here!’
‘Have you gone mad?’ Durnus was incredulous.
‘I’m no more mad than you two! I’ve been dragged around enough already. I understand this place. I’ve got a chance ‘ere.’
‘Suit yourself!’ shouted Modren. ‘Let’s go Towerdawn!’
As the dragon wrenched himself free of the broken wall, Durnus stared into the corridor. Jeasin stared right back. They would never have known, but their eyes met then.
‘If you see Farden…’ she yelled.
‘I will tell him!’
Jeasin nodded, and that was that. Jeasin had chosen her path. Its name was Malvus, the ruler of the Arka. A path along a knife-edge, true, but a better path than Tayn could have ever offered.
As the great dragon launched himself from the wall and into the cold air over the clamouring city, Jeasin threw herself into the rubble. She ignored the pain of the broken marble grazing her hip, of the jagged glass scraping at her skin. Then, like a true professional, she took a breath and began to scream.
‘Help!’
Chapter 17
“Whales are curious creatures. As old as the dragons and as
fickle as the wind, they are seldom seen these days. I hardly find it a surprise. Why should a whale come to sing its song for us, when all it receives in gratitude is a spear in the back. Oil and meat are not worth the silence of its song.”
From ‘The Edda of the Sea’ by Captain Norfumli
It was said that a cup of hot farksa could cure any ailment short of a missing limb. It was doubtful how true that was, but there was one thing it could cure like no other, and that was a cold morning.
The storm had broken in the early hours. The wind blew itself out and the rain had slunk away to the south. A sliver of moon had shown its face in the west; a split-bone pendant dangling in a sky thick with clouds. It played hide and seek with them until the sun chased it away.
With the sunrise came a calm, bitterly cold morning. Breath like pipe-smoke rose from the sailors and soldiers on deck, like steam from a battlefield. The deck resembled one too. The storm had wrought a warlord’s path across the Waveblade.
‘There’s a hair in my farska,’ muttered Eyrum, darkly. He had spent most of the night making friends with the bottom of a bucket. Like Farden, he was not fond of ships and stormy seas in the slightest.
Farden sipped his steaming hot cup gingerly. He too had been at the bottom of a bucket. ‘Better keep that quiet, otherwise everybody will want one,’ he whispered.
‘You’re lucky, Siren. I got a splinter in mine,’ Roiks eyed his farska. ‘Oh, tell a lie. Sliver of parsnip.’ He fished it out with a pair of rope-stained fingers and slurped it up eagerly. The bosun looked exhausted. Deep, dark rings surrounded his eyes.
‘This ship looks a mess,’ Farden said, eyeing the tangled rigging around his boots and the ugly broken tip of the mizzenmast.
‘Give it an hour. I’ll guarantee it’ll look as though we just sailed though a meadow, not a storm.’
‘Mhm.’ Farden wasn’t so sure.
Eyrum was still trying to get the hair out of his cup. He went to sit down, but as a dark shadow fell over the deck, he immediately stood straight back up. ‘What about the ice?’ He grumbled.
