Darksong

by Isobelle Carmody

  ‘I see you found them,’ the myrmidon said briskly. ‘Go straight in. They are waiting for you. I will see to the aspi and the carriage.’

  Virat grunted assent and led them to the building and a door which, though as dilapidated looking as the gate, opened just as smoothly. Light and the smell of food flowed out into the evening air as the unkempt woman who had opened the door beckoned them in. Virat ushered them along a bare, clean passage to a large room at the end. It was empty, but laughter rang out from a door that stood slightly ajar at the far end.

  A tall well-built woman stood before the door and, although she wore her hair long and unbound, and her face and dress were filthy, the strength evident in her limbs, not to mention an indefinable air of resolve and discipline, made Ember certain she was also a myrmidon. This, then, must be one of Fridja’s brigade of myrmidon spies. The woman made a gesture and Virat swept off her lumpy cap as they passed through into the room beyond, revealing her bound hair, cuffed with bronze and gold clips and dark brown beads.

  A strange sight met their eyes for, at a glance, the room seemed to be filled with women in white bodysuits, most of whom had white painted faces with stylised markings that made them all look the same. There were only a few myrmidons clad as Virat was, and three others clad in rags with unbound hair. Virat ignored them all and made for a grouping of high backed, battered armchairs and a low bench beside the fire. Seated here was a stocky woman with short, dirty brown hair, in close conversation with an attractive blonde myrmidon wearing form-fitting black clothes with tigerish orange slashes. At her side sat a third woman in traditional myrmidon attire. She must have been close to fifty and her brown dreadlocks were shot with grey strands. She was eating a bread roll with an abstracted expression, but it was she who spotted them first and nudged the blonde woman beside her, who looked up and smiled warmly at them. But before she could speak, the dirty-looking brown-haired woman in the seat beside her leapt up and embraced Bleyd. ‘Well met, my friend. It has been long.’

  ‘Too long, Fridja,’ Bleyd agreed and she laughed and pounded him enthusiastically on the back. Then she stared in dismay as he sank grey-faced to his knees.

  ‘Just … just give me a moment, Fridja …’ he panted. ‘Kalide … Kalide took a little too much pleasure in … interrogating me …’

  ‘Then it is true,’ the myrmidon spy mistress hissed, helping the groaning Bleyd to a seat. ‘Feyt sent word that you had been tortured in the cells on Ramidan, but when your chit arrived here this morning saying you were undertaking an expedition to the fire falls, I thought the earlier news must have been exaggerated.’

  ‘Make no mistake. I was half dead after Kalide’s tender ministrations. Thanks to Faylian, I was able to travel here, but I am still reliant on olfactor potions just now. Indeed I will need to replenish my supply very soon.’

  ‘Faylian?’ The blonde myrmidon had risen too, now. ‘I am glad to hear that she felt able to help you.’ Her tone was cool.

  ‘Kalide will some day pay a full price for all the hurt he has done,’ Fridja said in a flat, pleasant tone that belied the bleakness in her eyes.

  ‘Rest and drink to restore yourself, Bleyd. Food and drink will serve you better than the olfactors’ wares. But in a moment, after I have greeted our other guests, you will play balladeer for us.’ She turned to Hella. ‘I am surprised to see you here. I did not imagine that you were the Acanthan companion mentioned in Bleyd’s chit.’

  Hella smiled and offered her hands, palm up, to the myrmidon. ‘Greetings Chieftain of the Myrmidons.’

  ‘I prefer Duran,’ the blonde woman said mildly.

  ‘I thought you had decided to stay on Fomhika,’ Duran said to Hella.

  She shrugged and looked fleetingly forlorn. ‘Solen left for Ramidan, as you know. He later sent word suggesting that I join him, but I felt … I felt it was time that I found my own purpose in life. It wasn’t on Fomhika, much as I like it there. I had made up my mind to come to Myrmidor when a chit arrived that needed to be brought to you. It made sense for me to bring it. I actually have two chits for you. But I had not thought I might see you here. Of course I did not know I would be coming here either when I booked my passage on the Stormsong.’

  Bleyd interrupted then, to outline the failure of Vespian officials to alert Iridom, and Duran arched an elegant brow. ‘Even at their best, the Iridomi love bureaucracy and protocol, and you are right that they will enjoy making Vespi squirm over this. Nevertheless, it is unusual for Vespian officials to be lax where Iridom is concerned. I wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye.’ She turned to the scarred woman who now stood at her side. ‘Gorick, see what you can learn about the official status of the Stormsong and its mistress.’

  The scarred woman set down her mug and dragged a shapeless cap like Virat had worn over her bound hair, assayed a brief nod and strode from the room.

  ‘Go on with your tale,’ Duran returned her attention to Hella.

  ‘There is not much more to tell. I was not worried when I found the ship had to call in here. I actually thought it would be nice to take a trip to see the fire falls.’

  ‘How did you join forces with Bleyd?’

  Hella glanced at the Fomhikan. ‘We did not join forces,’ she said. ‘I met a girl who claimed to have been accompanying her brother on a business trip. The shipmistress had already told me that the brother was badly injured, having been beaten up by ruffians on Vespi. I did not learn the truth about them until Virat came to the fire falls today.’

  Duran regarded her in silence for a moment. ‘You take umbrage at the deception?’

  Now Hella appeared confused. ‘I do not know,’ she said at last. ‘I have no right to judge a future chieftain but … I do not like to be lied to. Especially by people to whom I have confided my own secrets.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Duran said. ‘We will speak more of these chits in a moment.’ Now she turned to Ember and asked simply, ‘Your name is Ember?’

  Ember fought the urge to cringe as all eyes in the room settled on her, but before she could frame a response, Bleyd said, ‘Ember is the Sheannite visionweaver who saved Tarsin from poisoning and me from the cells and a very unpleasant death at Kalide’s hands. She travels to Darkfall in search of healing …’

  Ember was annoyed that he spoke for her, yet relieved that he had stopped short of announcing her likeness to the long-dead Shenavyre. But when Duran’s pale, lovely eyes ran lightly over her painted and part-veiled face, Ember wondered how much more the older woman knew. Certainly if she really was chieftain of the myrmidons, as Hella had named her, a fact no one had ever mentioned to her before, she might know all that the soulweavers knew. Which meant that she could very well know that Ember was a stranger. Her expression, however, gave nothing away.

  ‘I have heard much of you, Lady,’ she observed. ‘Tell me …’ Whatever question would have been asked was interrupted by the hurried entrance of another myrmidon. Duran went to her and they conducted a low-voiced conversation, but when the myrmidon chieftain turned back to them, she merely asked Hella if she could have the chits she had mentioned.

  ‘I left them at the nightshelter …’ Hella said tersely.

  ‘Good. After I had sent Virat out, it occurred to me that even if the watcher was innocuous, you would be safer here, so I sent for your baggage.’

  Hella shook her head. ‘I am afraid that I concealed the chits in the room.’

  ‘Draaka’s shadow!’ Duran sighed. ‘Well, no matter. I will send Telo back when she arrives. I had actually thought she would return before you came but she must have been delayed.’

  All at once it came to Ember why the name of Hella’s brother had seemed familiar. Surely that was the name Glynn had called out as she fell from the cliff! The name might be common, but this Solen was on Ramidan, as Glynn may well be by now, and they might very well encounter one another. If only she could contact Feyt and suggest this. The trouble was that, given the callstone shortage, there was no means
of communication.

  Unless Duran was successful in her mission.

  ‘Is there any way we can help you tonight?’ Ember asked Duran, and ignored the look of astonishment that Bleyd directed at her.

  They were invited to eat and, while they awaited the food, Duran thanked Ember for her offer. ‘I gather that Virat explained my purpose here, but right now all we need to deal with the shadow-market master is a troupe of female acrobats. Which we just happen to have.’ She grinned, gesturing at the white-faced myrmidons, some of whom had now donned masks fitted with an enormous black dandelion ruff of material which completely concealed their dreadlocks.

  ‘You will act tonight?’ Bleyd asked.

  Duran nodded. ‘Tomorrow morning, or the day after at the worst, we should all be bound for Myrmidor.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Hella asked curiously.

  The myrmidon smiled at her indulgently. ‘Hungry for adventure, little one? Believe me, adventuring is generally a cold, discomfiting business with scant reward.’ Hella’s face fell and Duran laughed and relented. ‘My meeting with the master of the shadow market is to take place later this evening in a famous night garden.’

  Hella gave a little gasp. ‘You … you will go to a pleasure garden?’

  Duran chuckled. ‘There is a difference, my innocent young Acanthan, between night and pleasure gardens, though some say not much of a one. The latter are more sophisticated than the rough sorts of places sung of in bawdy songs, and they offer far more dangerous pleasures than a mere exchange of flesh.’ Hella flushed and looked as if she wished she had not asked as Duran continued. ‘The night garden we will visit is one of the best. The hostess offers song and dance and displays of trickery and illusion. Entertainers perform for the patrons, who are plied with rare drinks and foods and even rarer titbits of gossip. Patrons can bathe in pools of aspi milk or scented water or perfumed oil if they have coin enough. They can have steam baths and massages and they can have their flesh pierced or tattooed, mortified or anointed. All at a price, of course.’

  ‘Then … then there are not women who offer their body for coin?’

  ‘Oh, there are, and men as well. Some of them even choose that life, though far more are those who have been forced into it out of poverty, or because their families fell into debt, or because they are convicted of crimes which they may or may not have committed. Once they fall into the hands of the palace, they are offered to the highest bidder to serve as they require, until their term of punishment is fulfilled. The trouble is that the judgement and bond documents are never shown to the bonded servitors, who must serve until the palace informs them that their term is ended. Few live to see the end of such a contract, but you ought to pity the poor wretches who are sent to pleasure gardens and olfactor plantations above those who end up in night gardens.’

  ‘That … that’s horrible,’ Hella said, aghast. ‘How can it be permitted …’

  ‘How can it be prevented? It sounds practical and sensible to have prisoners and debtors work rather than languishing in cells. Who would dare to speak out against it, anyway? Coralyn rules here and it is her innovation. It is extremely profitable to have a force of slave labour that can be hired out. How else would she pay for all the legionnaires she hires, and their equipment?’

  ‘But Tarsin should …’ Hella began.

  ‘What our Holder should or should not do is no topic of conversation for this place and this time,’ Duran said sternly.

  ‘Go on with what is to happen tonight,’ Bleyd said impatiently.

  Duran shrugged. ‘The shadow-market trader will be going under the name of Bukanic. For all I know it may be his true name, though Fridja says not. He will be in a certain alcove with a display of precious stones laid out. Much business is conducted in night gardens and people will be drawn by the display. I will use them as cover to approach, identify myself using an agreed-upon phrase, and Bukanic is then supposed to present the callstones on offer and take my coin, once I have ascertained that the stones are real and unorientated and have them in my hand. Then I am to depart the garden. Bukanic will depart some time later.

  ‘Even if this were not obviously a trap, someone is bound to recognise you,’ Bleyd protested.

  ‘I will not be recognised tonight, thanks to the Olfactors Festival of Misrule.’

  ‘Of course, you will wear a mask!’ Hella said.

  Duran bestowed a dazzling smile on her. ‘I must wear a mask.’ She made a gesture and one of the other myrmidons rummaged in a trunk and then lifted out a red and gold patterned mask with wild ropy golden draperies, and a dazzling beaded cloak in orange, that would cover her from neck to toe.

  ‘As soon as you make yourself known to this Bukanic, he will surely signal his henchmen to take you or kill you!’ Bleyd cried.

  ‘Whatever mischief Bukanic has planned, he will not start trouble within the night garden, for the hostess will have him arrested if he does, lest she lose her licence. The olfactors command that there is to be no strife or violence to mar this night and any host or hostess who allows it is savagely fined, and the perpetrators whipped or divested of a hand, depending on the mood of the council when they are judged. It is more likely that Bukanic will have people outside the night garden waiting for me to emerge with the callstones. And they will not kill what can be richly ransomed. Bukanic will have me captured and then he will offer to sell me to my own sept, because my being here in disguise would constitute an act of war against Iridom. Coralyn would love to parade me in chains, so he will know that Myrmidor will pay a good deal to have me back.’

  ‘Perhaps he will sell you to the palace?’

  Duran shook her head. ‘I doubt it, given the poor reputation of the Iridomi palace for honouring its debts. Of course if Bukanic did hand me to the palace, perhaps as payment for protection or future favouritism, my sept would declare that I have run mad and produce all sorts of evidence to separate themselves from me. But I have no intention of being taken. Once my business with Bukanic is concluded, I will appear to leave the night garden, but in fact I will join the acrobatic troupe entertaining the guests, and depart as one of them.’

  ‘Now I understand the identical wingsuits and the face paint. But how can any of you pose as acrobats?’ Bleyd asked.

  Duran grinned. ‘None of us will pose as anything. I am sure you have heard of a famous troupe of Fomhikan acrobats known for its daring performances all over Keltor?’

  ‘You will pretend to be …’ Bleyd began.

  Duran cut him off. ‘Although these acrobats dwell on Fomhika and are assumed to be Fomhikan, they are in fact myrmidons in training. Every full-fledged myrmidon has served with the troupe for a period, and the reason for the white face paint is to prevent people realising that the troupe is constantly changing.’

  ‘Does my father know of this?’

  Duran shook her head. ‘Your mother does. It was Maeve’s suggestion, in fact. The performances we will give this night are spectacular and difficult enough that no one would imagine we are anything other than the accomplished acrobats that we claim to be.’

  ‘Incredible,’ Bleyd said, looking slightly dazed. ‘I have seen them perform and I would never have guessed … But how will you transform yourself without being seen, given that you will have only a few moments in which to change your appearance.’

  The myrmidon chieftain smiled. ‘This wingsuit is covered in black powder that will wash off easily and I will wear the same white greasepaint you see on the others on my face, but a design will be painted atop it, just in case something goes wrong and I am unmasked. The over design will be done in a paint that will wash off but if I am caught by some unlucky chance, it will be wiped off with the over-painting so that no one will connect me to the acrobats.’

  ‘What if you are caught?’ Hella asked. The myrmidons scattered about the room in pairs, now white-faced and donning masks and cloaks, grew silent, clearly wanting to hear the answer their mistress made.

  ‘The
important thing is that the stones reach Darkfall,’ Duran said in measured tones. ‘No matter what happens, I will get the stones from Bukanic. At the first sign of trouble in the gardens, I will immediately pass them to the acrobats. We have practised the manoeuvre so that it is highly unlikely to be noted. Once the stones are safe, getting them to Darkfall is the priority. Any sort of rescue attempt must come after that.’ She rose and looked at the costumed myrmidons, all of whom now wore masks and cloaks. ‘Go well. Perform well.’

  When the myrmidons had filed out, Duran returned to sit by the fire, and one of the remaining myrmidons began to apply white greasepaint to her face.

  ‘Does Signe know about this?’ Bleyd asked. ‘Do any of the soulweavers?’

  ‘I must do as I think best,’ Duran said, suddenly implacable. ‘My task is to protect the soulweavers, and sometimes that requires me to do things they would not like or approve.’

  ‘I do not think this plan sounds very safe,’ Hella said softly.

  Duran grinned. ‘In life, there are many more important things than mere safety.’

  ‘Please!’ cried the exasperated myrmidon who was trying vainly to paint Duran’s face. Duran was still while she applied the remainder of the white paint and then, over it, a layer of black paint. Then she took up a small palette of vivid colours and, in a few deft strokes, transformed Durans blackened face into a tawny series of ripples reminiscent of a tiger’s pelt. Finally she dusted the black with bright whorls of metallic colour. When she pronounced herself satisfied, Duran rose and stretched before pulling on a dark orange wingsuit.

  ‘Rest while you may, my friends,’ she said. ‘Make free of this place while we are gone, but do not leave. The festival nights are very wild and there is no telling what would befall you if you went out.’

  ‘I remember coming to the Olfactors Festival with my father as a boy,’ Bleyd said dreamily. ‘Everything was so bright and people laughed and danced and sang songs. I remember a beautiful woman dressed as a star who took my hand and danced with me. And we ate candied flowers as we watched the fire artists set their wares alight.’