Lucien

by James Moloney

  In my humble village, every house, every barn, even the shrine to our gods, was built in a rectangle shape, with the triangular gables of the roofs the only variation. In Vonne, it was the same, whether the building was King Chatiny’s palace or a ramshackle dwelling in the commonfolk streets. The Great Hall of Erebis was not only the largest building I had ever seen but it was also the most unusually shaped. It boasted eight sides, and topping its walls, which rose so high towards the heavens I had to bend my neck backwards to take them in, was a circular dome.

  That was shock enough. What intrigued me further were the many doors in the building’s eight walls. In Vonne, the grandest building was the palace, but it wasn’t for the commonfolk and its few gates were kept firmly locked. In contrast, the Felan’s most magnificent structure invited everyone inside. There were no gates, no guards, nor even any doors to swing shut against those wishing to enter. As we approached, I saw figures disappearing into the interior and other figures emerging, looking pleased by whatever they’d found inside.

  Geran stopped to wait for Ryall and me, which meant Tamlyn halted as well. His eyes found mine then flicked to the Great Hall.

  ‘I hadn’t imagined anything like this,’ he murmured.

  ‘Wait until you see inside,’ said Geran.

  The grand octagon and its domed roof were awe-inspiring, but the interior simply took my breath away.

  ‘Mosaics,’ I managed to whisper.

  Why was I surprised to find the inside of the Felan’s most sacred building covered from floor to ceiling in such exquisite images? I had been to the ancient city they’d abandoned in Athlane; I had stood inside the cave there and marvelled at what they had created, even as those same images had made me turn away in horror. The Felan had brought their skills with them to their new home and had used them to decorate this great temple erected in the centre of their world.

  I had already seen what the Felan’s craftsmen could achieve, but this building was immense and that meant the scope and grandeur of the mosaics were multiplied a hundred times. My eyes were drawn upwards into the dome, where gods floated majestically across a sky that was the rich blue of daylight on one side and the black of midnight on the other, dotted by stars and fringed by a faint suggestion of the dawn to come. The gods were noble figures, looking down sometimes in benevolence and sometimes in anger, to remind the Felan that even a good-hearted people can stray from justice and truth.

  The mosaics below the dome showed idyllic scenes of life in both city and country. I doubted this was how the Felan truly lived, but what was wrong with dreams when they offered something wonderful to hope for? That was what those mosaics were creating — a celebration of life as it might be if only the good in people were allowed to flourish.

  On the lower, more regular-shaped walls, the artists had told the story of the Felan, from their earliest days in Athlane, through their struggles and isolation from the commonfolk, and then showing the first signs of the Wyrdborn who sprang from their own blood. My eyes jumped from scene to scene until I found lines of folk boarding ships of every kind, each man and woman carrying a bundle, their faces showing the sadness of a people in flight. It could only be their departure from Athlane on the journey that had brought them here, to a land they had named after themselves — Erebis Felan. I recalled what Delgar had told me of the city’s name and was able to guess what Erebis Felan meant. Land of Hope.

  I forced my eyes to backtrack from the voyage until they found what I feared would be there. The Felan had brought all of their memories with them, the most frightening especially. Geran had told me as much. Even so, it was a shock to see the images again, exactly as they had been in the ruined city, as though the walls of that faraway cave had been hewn from the rock and transported here. My stomach wrenched when I saw the face of dear Nerigold, as clear and perfect as it had been in Nan Tocha. Here, as there, she held her baby in her arms, an infant to begin with, as Lucien had been when I’d first laid eyes on him, then a toddler, then the little boy he was now.

  Daring myself to search further, I fought tears at the first sight of Lucien with a sword in his hand, which he wielded with such devastating effect. And at the edge of the slaughter, there was the figure that chilled my blood even more: the faceless figure in the ornate helmet who urged him into battle until blood ran like water.

  I sensed Tamlyn at my side and turned to see him with Lucien still in his arms. ‘Thank the gods I wasn’t carrying Lucien when they came aboard our ship this morning.’

  ‘Shush! Sound moves about this building more easily than you realise,’ he whispered.

  As we made our way back to Geran, the sound of the crowd gathering outside suddenly grew louder.

  ‘The Elders are here,’ said Geran and I noticed how her words echoed around the hall.

  Men and women began to file through the many doorways to join our wary guards beneath the huge dome.

  ‘So many,’ I said without meaning to.

  ‘Most of them are ordinary people who’ve come to witness what happens,’ Geran explained. ‘Nothing like this has occurred in Meraklion before, not in their life spans anyway.’

  ‘They haven’t come to watch an execution, have they?’

  ‘Have faith,’ she replied. ‘My people care more for justice than your countrymen in Athlane do. Didn’t you read as much in these mosaics?’

  I had and, buoyed by her confidence, I leaned across and kissed Lucien on the cheek.

  ‘Take me, Silvermay,’ he called, stretching out his arms.

  It was one thing to see him so big, to watch him walk and run when he should only be crawling, but to have him speak to me so clearly brought fresh amazement every time he opened his mouth.

  Ryall saw my reluctance to take Lucien in my arms and knew why. Despite Lucien’s protests, he stepped in first and lifted him from Tamlyn’s shoulder, then distracted him by pulling back his sleeve so that Lucien could play with the wires of his mechanical arm.

  A bell sounded outside in the square.

  ‘It’s time,’ said Geran. ‘Do you see the many circles marked out on the floor?’

  I had been too interested in the walls to look elsewhere in the Great Hall, but now I saw the floor had been decorated with the same small stones and chips of glass. These were laid out in patterns rather than pictures, however, with circles the most common shape. Geran pointed to two circles at the centre of the hall. The inner one was only a few paces across and filled, except at its very centre, with tiny black stones that glistened as though they had been polished with an oiled cloth.

  ‘Gather on the black stones,’ she instructed.

  We moved cautiously into position, then stared out at the people who had come to gawk at us. They had approached only as far as the outer ring of circles and now formed a perfect curve of human bodies, standing three and four deep in places. I took Tamlyn’s hand.

  ‘You spoke about a Circle of Elders,’ he said to Geran.

  ‘You will see soon enough,’ she replied.

  5

  The Circle of Elders

  The tolling of the bell ceased, and as its reverberations slowly faded an expectant air gripped everyone inside the building. My nerves strained as though they might snap. Where were the Elders? How would they get through the wall of bodies staring in at us? The crowd was a barrier to anyone trying to enter the circle as much as it was a barrier to our escape.

  At last the entire building fell silent and, at this new signal, figures stepped forward from the front rank of the surrounding crowd. A handful of them were no older than my father, but most were grey-haired like Delgar the Wise, who had questioned me so subtly while we walked from the dock. It was no surprise to me when he stepped forward. The figure to his left was a woman, and by no means the only one, I noticed, as I tried to count the bodies. I was too anxious to do the job properly and settled for a guess of between thirty and forty.

  These were the Elders then, the most learned of the Felan, if Geran’s storie
s were correct. They advanced as far as the next circle crafted into the floor, this one coloured in brass-brown and gold and decorated with the same elaborate leaves and vines that surrounded the sortelle on Lucien’s arm. They placed their feet carefully on the designs, then stretched their arms wide until their fingertips touched, forming a different kind of circle, this one made of human flesh. Only when their arms dropped to their sides once more did they return their eyes to the centre — to us. They were ten paces distant yet I was sure I could feel the heat of their breath on my arms and face.

  Since Delgar was the only one I knew, I turned towards him, expecting him to speak for the others. I was wrong about this, though, just as I would be proved wrong about so many things.

  ‘Geran, you have asked to speak to the Circle on behalf of these travellers,’ said a voice behind me.

  I spun on my heels, but not in time to pick out which of the Elders had spoken. It added to the sense that they were a single body acting as one.

  Geran bowed. ‘My lords and ladies.’

  Since she faced away from at least half of the Circle, her words should have been inaudible to those behind her. But I quickly realised that the design of the Great Hall did more than overwhelm the eye, it played tricks with sound. From her position in the centre of the octagon, Geran’s voice seemed to bounce off the walls and the dome above until it was carried to every ear that cared to listen.

  ‘This family has come to Erebis Felan to seek your help,’ she said, and put her hand on Tamlyn’s shoulder. ‘This man is one of the Wyrdborn and so is his son.’

  There was a murmur around the Great Hall, not of shock, since rumours had been spreading through the city all morning, but because the fact had been confirmed so bluntly.

  ‘Wyrdborn are not welcome in Erebis Felan,’ said an Elder, and this time I saw the speaker — a man little different from those either side of him, his face weathered by age and perhaps what he had learned about human beings.

  ‘They know the fate of Wyrdborn who come here, my lord,’ said Geran. ‘They come with the protection of the sortelle.’

  At Geran’s signal, I rolled back Lucien’s sleeve so the tattoo could be seen by all. This time the audience erupted with gasps and, from some of the women, cries of disbelief.

  Geran hurried on with her story, so that they would understand. ‘The visitors knew the power of that symbol before I told them its true meaning. They planned to come here on their own, and sought my help only when I revealed myself as one of the Felan. I told them they would be given a fair hearing, and that is why they have dared to come ashore, knowing that others of their kind have been killed for doing no more.’ Geran paused, and turned a slow and silent circle, causing the tension inside the hall to rise even higher. ‘They have come to ask that we strip them both of their Wyrdborn powers, to rid them of the evil that lives inside them.’

  There was no surprise on the faces of the Elders. Geran’s announcement was for show, a ceremony. I had heard it said many times that the Felan had a great respect for ceremony.

  ‘Tamlyn,’ called the woman who stood beside Delgar, ‘do you understand that we cannot make you one of us? We cannot change your magic to a different sort. If we do as you ask, you will become one of the commonfolk, with no more strength than the men and women your kind have despised for centuries.’

  ‘I understand,’ Tamlyn replied. ‘That is all I ask. The commonfolk have strengths that the Wyrdborn don’t possess. I have come to value those strengths.’

  ‘What strengths are you talking about?’ asked another of the Elders.

  Like me, Tamlyn had seen that there was no need to turn to address each new speaker. His voice would be heard no matter which way he faced. So, he gave his answer looking at me.

  ‘Their greatest strength is the care they show for the ones they love. I have been shown that love by others, and I have tried to give it in return, only to feel my Wyrdborn nature in the way. If you grant my request here today, you will set me free to act as I dearly want to act and to enjoy what I have felt in myself all too briefly. It is the joy of life that I seek, so I may share it with the ones I love.’

  ‘I find it hard to believe that a Wyrdborn cares about love,’ said another fresh voice. ‘How can you be so different from others of your kind?’

  ‘I owe much to my mother, my lord,’ said Tamlyn. ‘The rest I owe to this woman,’ and, stretching his arm wide, he pointed me out.

  Until now the Elders had shown little emotion, apart from the stern set of their jaws and a coolness in their eyes, but Tamlyn’s answers impressed them, there was no doubt about it, and I detected a softening in the way they stared at us. Some even exchanged nods of approval across the Circle.

  ‘What of the child?’ another speaker asked. ‘He cannot speak for himself.’

  ‘Then let his mother speak for him,’ said Tamlyn. ‘Lucien has no more powerful advocate than Silvermay. She has brought him here not to make her own life easier, but because she loves him more than she loves herself. That is the strength of the commonfolk that I come seeking for myself and for my son.’

  Up to this point, everything Tamlyn had said was true. Now, he had lied to them. I wasn’t Lucien’s mother and Tamlyn wasn’t his father. If any among the Elders had the magic to sort truth from lies, as I had wished for myself on board the ship, then we would be damned by our own words. I began to leak the perspiration of deceit. Stop it, I told myself. The lies have to be told, and what will it matter once the good is done and the two souls I care so much about are commonfolk, like me?

  ‘Silvermay,’ called a voice I recognised. It was Delgar the Wise, speaking for the first time. ‘This talk of love does you credit. I, for one, don’t doubt that you care deeply what happens to your son. You should know, then, that what you’re asking us to do calls for a powerful magic. The Circle uses such magic only rarely and for good reason. In order to strip your son of his power, we must drain the life from him, almost to the point of death.’

  I didn’t need a mirror to know the blood had fled from my face. ‘Will he die?’

  ‘With so many of us giving strength to the magic, we are not always certain of the result,’ said Delgar.

  The Elders were asking me to judge the risk. I was Lucien’s mother — his best advocate, Tamlyn had called me. Suddenly I found myself back in that extraordinary cave in Nan Tocha, not to examine the mosaics yet again, but to hear my own voice say words I had never thought I could utter: It would be better if he were dead. Tamlyn and I had been ready to kill Lucien rather than see him grow into the monster the mosaics predicted. Here in Erebis Felan, I faced the same dilemma. At least this time there was hope.

  With my eyes on Delgar, I told the Circle, ‘A long time ago, I made a vow to save Lucien from his fate.’ I pushed to the back of my mind the fact that I had made this vow to Nerigold, his real mother. ‘Here, in this land of hope, in this wonderful building, with all of you around us, I will see that vow to its end. If Lucien dies, then my heart will die with him, but I will not step back now when we have come so far.’

  I said no more, just watched while the Elders conferred with nods and murmurs I couldn’t read. Without any signal that I could see, they raised their arms again until their fingers touched and remained that way, as though their minds spoke silently to one another. When their arms fell to their sides, the same voice that had spoken first delivered their decision. I saw now that the speaker was a bald-headed man with features that seemed vaguely familiar.

  ‘It will be done,’ he said. ‘The father first, then the child. Clear the circle.’

  Geran’s face broke into a grin. ‘This way, Silvermay. You too, Ryall, and bring Lucien with you,’ she said, ready to lead us out of the circle.

  Turning to Tamlyn, she said more solemnly, ‘You must stay here. Stand in the centre and try not to move. The magic will take a great deal from you, but that is what you have come for, to have the foulness of the Wyrdborn leached from your soul. With it will g
o every ounce of strength that your soul might use to resist.’

  She leaned close and kissed him on the cheek, as a way of saying good luck, perhaps, because the words would have been too much to say out loud.

  What farewell was I granted to the one I loved when he might be about to die? There should have been a great scene, kisses and hugs and tears to flood the entire hall while I told him how much he meant to me. Yet amid the confusion of movement and the fear that a voice might denounce us at the last moment, we could only stare at one another in the desperate hope that this would not be the last time.

  When Geran first ushered us onto the black stones, I hadn’t seen the contrasting white circle at its centre. This was where Tamlyn stood now, alone. The stones seemed impossibly white, as though the Felan craftsmen had scoured their entire land for pebbles without a single trace of colour.

  My attention was drawn away from Tamlyn by a scraping sound high above our heads. Like all eyes in the building, mine searched the dome and saw an aperture beginning to open at its very top. Crescent-shaped at first, like the slimmest sliver of the new moon, it grew thicker as we watched, changing its shape as one curved lip receded from the other.

  Sunlight flooded through the opening and fell directly onto Tamlyn in a shower of silver and gold. I saw immediately why the builders had chosen the whitest of stones for the circle where he stood, for the sun’s reflection leapt up from around his feet, enveloping him in light from both above and below.

  The Elders raised their arms again, not to touch fingertips with those on either side, but to point towards Tamlyn. The light around him grew in intensity, hurting my eyes. Tamlyn grimaced in the sunlight and let out a groan. I saw huge beads of perspiration gather on his forehead. Were they caused by the power of the sun or the pain that was engulfing him?