Pale Kings (Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  “Our Dukes of Albion want one thing and one thing only; land, and that’s what they get. Nothin’ else seems to interest them, even their castles and parties come second. Their lordships come from a long line o’ land owners, and they barter and sell it ‘ow they please. It seems to be the only thing they ever fight over. And of course we peasants get nothin’ but ‘ard work and rainfall. But you can’t complain, rain’s good for the skin so I ‘ear, and if that’s true then we Albion men must ‘ave the finest skin in all of Emaneska!”

  Unknown source

  Nightfall saw Farden in the palace libraries, sitting at a wide desk in a secluded corner, scanning distractedly through old books and flipping through dusty tomes. A barricade of useless books already dominated the perimeters of the desk, while piles of discarded parchments surrounded his chair, veritable towers in the making. A lone candle in a wine glass perched on the end of the desk, struggling to hold back the darkness. The wine had long gone, and the greenish hue of the empty glass had turned the flickering flame a strange colour. The pages of the open books glowed green in the ghostly light, while unearthly shadows flitted between the bookcases. The mood was more akin to that of a crypt than a library, and the air was just as cold. But, preoccupied as usual, Farden was oblivious to his strange surroundings, and simply kept reading until the candle went out.

  The mage swore, and in the darkness clenched a fist. A white light threw back the thick gloom and Farden went back to reading his book. He’d been at the desk for hours now. He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for, but he was sure it was there, some clue as to how to deal with Vice or Cheska, some golden titbit of information lying buried in some misplaced wizard’s spell manual or a Siren cookbook.

  But most of the books and tomes on his table had been utterly useless. They were full of random things, things that had no rightful place in a respectable library, things like advice on carrot farming, treatises on steelwork, a parchment on how to survive a wolf attack, and, to top it all off, the long lost history of the snow shoe. It seemed that all the useful stuff was in dragonscript, or in a strange dialect of Siren that was so old it was unreadable. Just like in the Manesmark School or the Arfell libraries, any books of value had been locked away and hidden from prying eyes.

  Eventually the mage slammed his book shut. There was nothing useful in this section of the library, least of all a spell book. Nothing useful at all. Farden wondered why the Sirens bothered keeping all of this stuff in the first place. He had half a mind to burn it all and save them the trouble.

  Rubbing his eyes with the backs of his knuckles, Farden yawned. He blinked like an owl as he got to his feet to stretch. He was rewarded by several satisfying clicks somewhere deep in his spine. Increasing the brightness of his light spell, Farden left his desk and wandered into the darkness to try to find some more useful books. Stubborn as always.

  After a little while of searching, he came across a narrow gap in the wall where some thoughtful person had placed a set of fresh lanterns. He took one and lit it with a click of his finger, and instantly discovered a set of steps leading down into a dark and gloomy annex of the library he had not noticed in the daylight. Curiosity piqued, Farden walked down the steps and found himself in a very long and dusty corridor. The air was stale and very cold. Farden exhaled and saw his own breath in the lantern’s light. Farden kept walking, taking in every inch of his surroundings as he walked.

  There were gilded bookcases on either side of the corridor. Long, tall, and deep bookcases inlayed with golden dragonscript and hieroglyphs depicting things Farden had only ever seen in the wall paintings in the great hall. Farden held his lantern as high as he could and looked in wonder at the arched stone ceiling above him. There were clouds there, hiding behind the cobwebs and dust, painted in greys and blues, and where the oaken bookcases met the stone, the two materials seemed to fuse into one, a seamless transition between the painted sky and the ornate wood.

  The mage turned his attention to the books. They had been crammed into every spare inch of the sturdy shelves. Careful not to hold his lantern too close he squinted at the tomes. The spines of the books were blank, old, and nameless. Some were thicker than others while some were even wider still. Farden prodded one and found them to be cold and hard and rough, like metal or dragonscales. All of a sudden the mage realised they were actually tearbooks, hundreds upon hundreds of tearbooks, ranging from every colour and pattern imaginable. Intrigued, Farden put his lantern on the floor and managed to pry one of the books from its place on the shelf. It was a heavy thing, almost as heavy as he remembered Farfallen’s to be, and covered in dust. The scales that formed its cover were of a deep blue. They sparkled in the lanternlight like cobalt sand in the sun. Farden flipped it open and just as he had expected the pages were blank and an ancient yellow. He rubbed the empty page with his thumb, and hummed thoughtfully, wondering what sort of dragon it had belonged to.

  Once he had managed to squeeze the blue tearbook back into its place, the mage wandered on down the long corridor. In the darkness, it was hard to see where the ancient bookshelves were leading him but as always his curiosity instructed him to follow, and so he did. The corridor of books stretched on, and on, and on.

  After what seemed like a mile of bookshelves and ever-increasing levels of dust and cold, Farden finally came to the end of the corridor. By the looks of it, no man or beast had set foot there for years, maybe decades. His boots left deep and lonely footprints in the dust. The air smelled musty and dry, like a tomb or a cave.

  An alcove hid in the darkness where the bookshelves ended. Crouching in the alcove was a marble statue of the weather-god Thron, the Siren deity. His marble face, shrouded in arrogant dust and presumptuous cobwebs, was stern and grim like the weather outside. Farden looked up at the statue and wondered how long it had sat there in the dark, wings arched, fist clenched in frustration, finger pointing downwards. Farden raised his lantern to investigate and followed the direction of Thron’s marble finger. At the knees of the weather-god and obscured by dust and shadows was an ornate marble pedestal holding a massive book. Farden wiped the dust from its cover with the side of his hand. This was no tearbook. This book had a name, and if Farden remembered his Siren correctly, it was “Grimsayer.”

  The mage balanced the lantern on the edge of the pedestal and ran his fingers over the edges of the book. Like the wooden bookcases and the ceiling the book seemed fused to the marble and refused to move. Its cover was made of a strange leather that was oddly warm to the touch. The feel of it made Farden’s skin tingle. There was an old magick inside this Grimsayer, and whatever it was Farden could sense it. His insistent curiosity suggested that he open it, and the mage agreed. There was a gold and silver latch on one side, but it was not locked, and Farden managed to wiggle it apart. The Grimsayer, however, was unnaturally heavy and it took some effort to lift its cover. The old book creaked and moaned and complained like a disgruntled ghost, but fortunately for Farden, the strange book did not put up much of a fight, and with a dull thud and another shower of dust he managed to open the book. Farden waved his hands and coughed, eager to see what he had uncovered.

  To his utter disappointment, the mage found it to be blank. Joy, he thought. Farden shook his head and wondered why the Sirens insisted on keeping so many empty books around. He spread his hand over the yellow page and sighed thoughtfully. It was late, he decided, and he doubted this book was going to tell him anything soon. He would investigate further in the morning, he told himself, and then turned to reach for his lantern. But Farden was tired, and like everybody else in the world the mage was prone to a bit of clumsiness now and again, and although rare, in his sleepy state he was as uncoordinated as a boulder.

  As he turned, the corner of his elbow knocked the lantern from the pedestal and sent it flying. It landed on the floor with the smash and promptly went out, leaving the mage in complete darkness. Farden cursed darkly and then thanked the gods the flame had not fallen near the dusty book
cases. But just as he was about to summon a light spell, something started happening in the darkness, something very unexpected indeed.

  A strange light began to emanate from the edges of the Grimsayer, an unearthly orange glow that made Farden take a step back. He watched in wonder as two pinpricks of bright light appeared in the crease of the page. Like inquisitive fireflies, they proceeded to fly in slow and lazy circles over the open book, leaving trails and ribbons of orange light in their wake. Assuming they were not dangerous, Farden took a step forward and tried to touch one of them, but as soon as he came close the lights darted away from his hand and quickly began to trace a shape in the air. They moved faster than the eye could follow, and within moments, an outline of a dragon appeared over the page, silhouetted in wisps of orange light.

  The dragon, an old female by the looks of her, was curled up in a ball like a cat. Still and unmoving, she was about the size of Farden’s fist, and looked so lifelike that the mage couldn’t help but reach out and touch her. His hand passed straight through the glowing apparition, like a blade through smoke, and the hovering lights quickly repaired it. A word, maybe a name, appeared at the dragon’s tightly curled claws, written in glowing letters. Farden tried to read the ancient lettering, but he couldn’t. Carefully and respectfully, like one laying flowers at a grave, and without really knowing why, he turned to the next page. The dragon disappeared and this time the orange lights traced a man, tall and imperious and dressed in fine clothes, perhaps a lord or even a duke from an earlier time. Another word appeared, this time in a language that Farden understood. It was a name, and this man’s name had been Korgg, and he was missing all but one of the fingers from his left hand.

  The next page was a girl in her early teens, no bigger than Farden’s thumb, a barefoot beggar girl dressed in sackcloth and dirt. Her name was difficult to read, and even harder to pronounce. Despite her miserable appearance, her expression seemed happy enough. He turned the page again and this time the lights traced another dragon, a giant male with a huge crown of spikes. The next was a woman in armour, scarred and tattooed, and so it continued.

  The mage kept turning the seemingly endless pages and each time the lights traced a dragon or a man or a child or a beast of some kind. There were Siren, Arka, Paraian, Albion, and Skölgard, ancient and recent, peasant, soldier, lord, and lady alike. Every single one had a name to accompany them, some readable, others foreign, and every single one was still and unmoving, depicted and sketched in orange light.

  Farden rubbed his chin in deep thought and turned the page once more. The lights went to work once again, and this time they drew a woman, a woman he had not seen for almost thirty years, a woman he knew was dead. Farden watched as her name rose up from the page. The mage reached out and touched the orange silhouette that resembled his mother, watched as she melted around his fingers like wreaths of smoke.

  Farden had let go of his parents a long time ago. When he was six they had died in an avalanche deep in the mountains. Part of him had been too young to comprehend the loss, the other part had buried itself in magick and training. It had been years since he had even thought of them.

  In his memory, his father was a blur. Farden remembered he was a woodcutter, a big man with few words and a stern hand, but the rest was unclear and hazy. Memories usually were at six years old. His mother he could picture as though he had seen her yesterday. She had been beautiful, with deep blue eyes like Tyrfing’s and long dark hair that reached to her waist. As a child, he could remember tracing the swirling tattoos on her wrists, the keys to her Book, with his finger, the same ones that now adorned his wrists. She had been a wind mage, and she used to make the branches of the pine trees tap on his window to wake him up. Strange, the things he remembered. Farden closed the book, immersing himself in darkness once again.

  Farden summoned his light spell and left, mindful to take the pieces of the broken lantern with him. He made a mental note to come back and investigate the strange Grimsayer some more. Maybe he would ask Eyrum about it.

  As he left the dark corridor and entered the main library, he was met by the sound of hailstones on a nearby windowsill and the howling of the keen wind outside. Farden wondered how long the Sirens could last against this cold.

  The mage left the gloomy library and began the winding walk back to his rooms. As he paced along the brightly lit corridors of the palace, he found himself to be in a reasonably good mood. Despite not finding what he was looking for in the library, he had found something, and that was better than nothing. Maybe the wine had finally reached his head, he thought. Maybe he was just glad to be back and to have things moving again. The cogs of the war machine were finally starting to turn. A shiver of anticipation ran through the mage’s veins then, as if he could almost taste the vengeance.

  When he reached his rooms, he found the door unlocked and slightly ajar. Wary, Farden pushed the door open and went in. Every candle had been lit and in the hearth the fire was crackling away quite contentedly. Spare blankets had been placed on a chair and fresh fruit and wine were on the table. Farden shrugged and placed his broken lantern on the table next to the fruit bowl. He promised himself he would fix it later, and after a yawn and a stretch, he decided it was probably time for bed and went through the door to his bedroom.

  Lerel was there waiting for him. She was standing at the window on the far side of the room, watching the freezing rain pummel the balcony outside. She still wore her blue dress. ‘You’ve been gone quite a while,’ she said without turning around.

  Farden nodded. ‘I found some interesting reading in the library,’ he replied, mystified as to why she was in his room. ‘I wasn’t aware I was being supervised.’

  Lerel turned around and crossed her arms. There was a smile teetering on the edge of her lips. ‘Old habits,’ she said.

  The mage walked forward. ‘Of course, that’s right. Tyrfing sent you to watch over me didn’t he?’

  ‘Well, no, not exactly, but it wasn’t a completely unpleasant outcome,’ she shrugged.

  ‘Not completely unpleasant?’

  ‘It was just a shame I was a cat,’ replied Lerel, turning back to the window. Her hands roved over the keepsakes Farden had left on the windowsill: his dusty spyglass, a vulture feather, and two striped pebbles.

  Farden blinked owlishly, not quite knowing what to make of such a comment. ‘Why are you here?’ he asked, wondering if that had sounded rude. Lerel didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Tyrfing and Durnus are busy speaking with Farfallen. I was passing by and thought you might want to chat. You’ve been gone a long time.’

  Tyrfing and Durnus were busy with Farfallen then. Farden groaned. His uncle would be breaking his news to the other two that very moment. Farden took a dash of comfort in the fact that there was nothing he could do about it. He sighed. ‘It’s been a while since I’ve chatted,’ he said. The wind rattled the door to the balcony in its frame, and the mage had an idea. He picked up a nearby coat that had been left draped over his bed and walked to the door. ‘Here,’ he said to Lerel. She looked at it, and then him, with a curious and slightly bemused look in her dark brown eyes.

  ‘Are we going somewhere?’ she asked.

  Farden shrugged. ‘Well you don’t want to be cold do you? It’s not like you have a fur coat any more,’ he said, and then he unlocked the balcony door and stepped out into the night.

  ‘But it’s freezing out there!’ she called after him. There was no reply except the howling of the bitter wind, and Lerel hurriedly put on her coat and followed the mage, utterly confused. To her surprise, the wind was calmer outside, and the rain that had been hammering the windowpanes had completely stopped. Or so she thought.

  ‘Magick has its perquisites,’ said Farden. He was holding his hand in the air with his fingers splayed wide. Just above his skin the air shivered and rippled like rain on the surface of a calm pond. Lerel shook her head and couldn’t help but smile. She put a hand to the magick bubble Farden had created and w
atched its surface wobble. ‘You mages are all the same,’ she said.

  Farden smiled at her. ‘I hope not.’

  There was a moment of silence as the wind battered their little bubble of safety. Farden pushed it outwards and took a few steps forward so he could look over the balcony railing and down into the darkness. Most of the torches on the craggy mountain side had been blown out, and only the lights from the windows remained. They twinkled like earth-bound stars, while up above nothing shined at all. The clouds were too thick and full of rain. ‘I hate the rain,’ said Lerel, pulling her coat around her. She wrinkled her nose. Farden stared into the darkness. ‘I don’t know how you can put up with the desert. So dry and hot.’

  Lerel made a noise and half-closed her eyes. ‘Mm, so warm and sunny. Not like this ice-infested rock.’ Farden chuckled. ‘The Long Winter isn’t over yet,’ he said, and then turned to face her. It was slightly surreal seeing her as a human. Farden was having a hard time taking it all in. He half-expected her to lick the back of her hand and start grooming. ‘Why didn’t you tell me he was alive?’

  Lerel leant her elbows on the rail and rolled her eyes. ‘He said you’d have questions,’ she answered.

  ‘Like you said, old habits,’ said Farden. He lowered his hand while keeping his spell up. ‘Seeing as I left quite soon after we arrived, I never really had a chance to find out more about you.’

  ‘No, you just called me Lazy,’ said Lerel, quietly.

  Farden laughed, not quite sure if she was serious or if she was joking. ‘Well, you wouldn’t talk to me, so I had to guess.’

  ‘Couldn’t, not wouldn’t. The shifting wasn’t as complete as we’d planned.’ Lerel shrugged. She ran a hand through her hair. Her nails had been painted a dark red.

  ‘Why you?’ Farden asked again, and after a moment, she answered.

  ‘When a Paraian child becomes an orphan, there are normally two choices he or she faces. The first, which is the traditional way for nomad tribes, is that the child is passed to a brother or sister or some other family member. The second, which seems to happen more and more often these days, is to give the child to your local neighbourhood slaver, and trade them in for slavegold, or food, or whatever. Orphans from the cities are like walking coin purses.’