The Saint's Rise (Ignifer Cycle Book 1)

by Michael John Grist

  "Watch it," the Ogric called over its shoulder, showing a mouth full of cracked green teeth. The Abbess' clawed hand clutched his tightly, his only lifeline back to a world that made sense. It felt like he was drowning beneath the clouds of blue scarab-smoke that fogged the air, along with the scent of roasting spices, the stink of rot and effluent from open sewer covers.

  He tumbled through the crowd like a stone rolling downhill, as castes he'd never seen before passed by and their dizzying thoughts poured over him, from small-faced Pinheads with moon-like skulls to little Dogsbodies yapping on street corners. A Cowface ambled by, his distended purple jaw hanging down so his lower teeth hung just over his collarbone. His long fat tongue quivered with each step, and his mind was a mess of pain and desire. In alleyways through the pressing throng Sen glimpsed hard-shelled damask Sectiles clad in all shades of face paint, throwing off sprays of hatred and contempt. A Bellyhead with his heap of blubbery stored fat wobbling atop his skull bartered at a fruit cart, thinking about home. Here a sled-team of matted Malakites heaved through the throng bearing bulging sacks of chaff and plaster.

  If it weren't for the Abbess holding him up, he would have sunken under and been crushed a long time ago. She pulled him through and he lurched along in her wake, until a cold wall slammed into his chest, and he stopped dead in the street, jerking the Abbess to a halt.

  An Adjunc.

  It drew his gaze like a light in a dark room; a gray scorpion of dead mogrified flesh, rising up above the bustling throngs. One lolling torso stood atop a frame of two sutured bodies, stalking along on six grossly muscled limbs. Set within its single, misshapen head were numerous unblinking eyes, yellow with pus. It was madness incarnate, so cold that it stung, a host of bodies and minds crushed together, perverted and caged. It terrified him.

  The Abbess squeezed his hand firmly and ducked down to his level. "Head down, Sen," she said in his ear. "Keep walking."

  She led and he let her pull him on, stumbling amidst the bodies and minds, until the Adjunc grew distant and they came to a quieter lee of the tradeway, where the crowds were thinner and a brougham carriage was waiting for them. It was gilt with mahogany and drawn by two Barbary horses. The groomsman leapt down from his reins and swung the carriage door open. The Abbess helped Sen in, so dizzy he couldn't balance well, then slammed the door behind them and urged the groomsman on. He heard a whip crack above, then the brougham started off down the street, cartwheels rumbling.

  Sen sat with his head between his hands, breathing hard, rocking slowly back and forth. It was too much.

  "What's wrong with him?" he heard Feyon ask. He'd caught only a glimpse of her as he'd climbed in. She was dressed in one of her outlandish outfits, all curls and frills, but at least this was familiar.

  The Abbess ignored her. "I'm sorry," she said, her hand on his back. "I never thought it would be so bad."

  Feyon said some more but he couldn't really listen, focusing on his breathing and regaining control. Still she went on, her usual cheery patter about dolls and events at Court and the latest fashions, but the sounds washed over him. The world outside was chaotic and violent, more so than anything he remembered, and it took all his effort to keep it from crushing him. But as the carriage clattered away the busiest stretch of the Haversham, the weight eased. It became manageable, and he lifted his head.

  "Poor you," said Feyon, cooing softly, reaching for his hand. "You're shaking."

  He pulled away, and turned to look out of the window. It helped to focus on streets and buildings. This was Pelorin district, soon to meet the Gilungel Bridge and cross the Levi River. Street names rose up from his memory and he cycled through them, each familiar, earthing him within the chaos. Here was Feralty Road, Crambler's Brack, Gorshalty Avenue, and on the other side Beadly Row, Soph, and Allertric Fed.

  An Adjunc stalked by nearby, bringing that same cold and staring wall that stopped his breath. He focused on the streets it had likely come from and those it was heading toward, reeling off the names one after the other as a way to regain control.

  Soon the carriage turned, and a strong waft of fish-rot and salt blew through the open brougham window. The buildings peeled back, the sky opened up, and they emerged from the belly of the dark side onto Gilungel Bridge.

  Sen had never seen the Levi River before, except from atop the cathedral with Alam by his side. Now it was a welcome emptiness, a broad flat expanse stretching out like a great gray road.

  White gulls coasted on the ocean-breeze, and Sen tracked them as they swooped occasionally on a ragged line of small snub-nosed flatboats trawling the river. Upon them low-caste Indurans wielded long hooked pikes and nets, dipping into the slow-moving water like cooks stirring a broth. The faint sense of drudgery and disease rose up from their minds.

  "They're fishing for refuse," Feyon said, breaking her stream of chatter about Court. "It silts up the Levi, prevents trade boats. Awful to have to see such low castes here, really, but at least they're not allowed on the banks."

  Sen watched the Indurans working. One tugged a large bulk from the water, white and bloated. At first Sen thought it was some kind of fish, then he realized it had arms and legs, was a dead Appomatox.

  "There are cannon mounts all along here," Feyon boasted, pointing to the bridge either side. It was fashioned in dark grindstone, with low mountings every twenty feet or so; circular wooden boards with hook and chains. "It was all houses and shops before the Drazi came, and the Roy moved here from the Slumswelters. The new King razed them, reinforcing the bridge as the last access to the Roy."

  Sen turned to her, at last trusting himself to speak. "You know a lot about it."

  She smiled warmly, clearly glad to have his attention. "My father is a Duke, he commands the…"

  He turned back to the window. Soon they were across the river, the salt stink faded, and a thoroughfare spread broadly before them, the Andgrave. Here were none of the peddlers and haberdashers that filled out the Haversham, instead the avenue was tree-lined and patrolled by Molemen in blood-red tubing, walking in strict tandem. Each of them looked like Daveron, and Sen felt only ordered logic from them, each part of an intricately geared machine.

  "The path to the Aigle," said Feyon proudly.

  Sen pulled his masking kerchief tight and leaned out of the carriage window to look ahead. At the top of the low hill there were fountains, and flanking orchards of perfectly aligned hawkenberry trees, and beyond them, rearing atop the Roy, was the King's black Aigle palace.

  It was huge, a giant Mjolnir skyship beached on a hill. Black metal struts and cables spun across it like a spider's web, leashing its various revolving towers and turrets together. From within came the low throb of its engines turning, keeping a constant shield of impenetrable Mjolnir metal between its towers and the world. At the center Sen could just pick out the one entrance ramp, leading to a small arch that opened and closed like an eye as the palace revolved. The low grind of its constant rotation thrummed up through the brougham seat.

  It was the last bastion of the King, impossible to breach when the outer shell was revolved and locked. Nothing could break through.

  "Have you ever been inside?" he asked Feyon.

  She nodded eagerly. "Once, we were summoned for a ball, and it was so wonderful…"

  Shortly afterward the brougham turned again, and they were off the Andgrave and winding up narrow flagstone-paved streets through Diamante district, lined with the storefronts of jewelers and tailors, their raiment products displayed behind glass windows on velvet cushions. Feyon gasped and pointed out the newest designs to the Abbess.

  The carriage ran along a high bridge, revealing a view back across the entire city. Sen could just make out the Abbey far away, with only the white cathedral tower and green smudge of the grounds discernible. It seemed so small now, buried amongst the mass of life that jostled all around it.

  At last the carriage stopped at a wrought-iron gate, before a fine manor house with broad grounds. The gro
omsman leapt down to speak with a mogrified Malakite, all muscles, apish hair, and animal thoughts in a tight-fitting uniform.

  "This is my home," Feyon told them proudly. "The Gravaile mansion."

  The gates opened and their carriage entered a brilliant whitestone courtyard, enclosed on all sides by cloisters. It looked just like the Abbey in miniature. They pulled up alongside a waiting ostler who clapped the horses' haunches and whistled them in.

  The Abbess climbed out and Sen followed.

  "Your mother chose her, remember that," the Abbess said in his ear. "There's a reason for it, I'm sure."

  They walked up the path, and Sen wondered at how closely it resembled the Abbey; the same white marble, the same pinkish cloisters, even carvings of faded angelic figures on the roofline.

  "My parents are very devout," said Feyon, noticing his gaze. "They modeled their home on your order."

  Standing at the door were two figures, surely the Duchess and Duke Gravaile. Feyon's mother was a beautiful and slender Blue dressed in an elegant black and silver gown. Her father was a stout Alpecic with skin as white as milk, wearing a major's gray uniform. The Abbess strode ahead to meet them, leaving Sen standing with Feyon.

  "Your mother is beautiful," he said.

  "Of course she is," Feyon replied.

  The Abbess introduced him, and the Duchess and Duke welcomed him, what little of him they could make out beneath the masking layers he wore. They explained what an honor it was to have the hope for the Saint in their home. Neither of them invited him to unclasp his cowl though, or take off his gloves.

  "Keep them on," the Abbess whispered, then went back to smiling gracefully as the Gravailes started them on a tour round their home.

  They passed through four reception rooms for guests of differing value, each decorated with a motif of increasing stature, from Jalopy geese in the first through millinery peacocks in the second, to Hasp chimeras in the third. The fourth bore no images at all, rather every wall and item within was painted black and there were no windows.

  "The Scuttle, for the King," Feyon told him in a whisper. "Should he ever deign to visit."

  They walked the fetchling corridors that sang with a thousand squeaking metal joints built into the floors. They surveyed the Barbary horses standing eight feet high in the stables. They took in the view from the three balconades, looked in on four of the seven opulent bedrooms, tried out the tapestried seats in the two dining rooms, continuing until nearly the whole expansive house had been seen.

  At the end of the tour, as the Duchess and Duke went with the Abbess to their own private chancel for a communion with the Heart, Feyon led Sen to a nondescript wooden door on the second floor. On the wall beside it hung a revelatory lamp, which she sparked and tuned to yellow. In the day-lit corridor it seemed pointless.

  "When can I speak to your father, Feyon?" he asked.

  "In a moment. First I want to show you something." She gave an enigmatic smile, then she opened the door and stepped into a dark, windowless room beyond. "Come in."

  Sen paused, wondering if he should just go back to one of the reception rooms and wait for the Duke to come to him. But he'd come this far, and the Abbess' words still played in his head. Whether his mother was alive or dead, she'd chosen this girl, and perhaps there were more answers here than he'd expected.

  He followed Feyon in.

  "It's our doll room," she said, standing in the middle of the dark room, haloed by the revelatory's orange gaslight. There was no furniture, but it wasn't empty, and she gestured to the walls around them. Four banks of shelves ran around the whole room, spread from floor to ceiling, and all of them were filled with dolls. Their still eyes stared back at him, enlivened by the revelatory flame. "We keep it dark to preserve them, so they never grow old."

  There were hundreds of them in total, all different sizes and shapes. Sen felt pride rising off Feyon, and something else, a kind of sadness. She set the revelatory down and moved to one of the walls, where she stroked several of the dolls lovingly, in elegant motions smoothed by time and practice. Then she plucked one of them out. It was half her own size and looked exactly like her; blue skin, green eyes, red hair, down to the very clothes it wore and the style of its hair, a perfect replica of Feyon.

  "This is my doll," she said, not looking at him. "All girls in the Roy get one when they turn six. It's supposed to mark passage into the adult world, when we're eligible to marry. Have you heard of them?"

  "No."

  She spread her arms to encompass the room. "These are all the dolls of my family line." She pointed to one that sat above her slot. "That's my mother's, above it is her mother's, and so on back for a hundred generations, dolls telling us who we are and who we were, what it means to be a Gravaile."

  Sen remained close by the door, watching her.

  "Why am I here, Feyon?" he asked.

  She ignored the question, a coy smile playing on her lips. Instead, she replaced her doll and picked up another from the space next to it.

  "This is my sister's doll," she said, sidling closer. The sense of pride mingling with sadness grew stronger, spiked by a rising excitement. "You didn't know I had a sister, did you? She was born long before me, and my parents sent her away. I never knew her. Here."

  She passed the doll to him, and he took it.

  "It's lovely," he said. Its skin was blue, and it looked much like Feyon.

  She stepped closer, so close he could feel her breath on his face, and placed her hands over his, turning the doll. "Here," she said quietly, conspiratorially. "Look."

  She peeled back the doll's blouse, to reveal a sewn-in blemish across its back, made with dark blue wool. Feyon ran her fingers across it and shivered.

  "What is it?" Sen asked.

  "A scar," Feyon said, her eyes big in the darkness. "Like yours."

  Sen studied it, a simple jag. "It looks like a birthmark."

  "That doesn't matter," she said, breathing fast now, leaning closer. "It's exciting. I want to know what it means." She took another step, almost pressing her body against his. "I want to feel it."

  Sen took a step backward, overcome by the sudden power of her feelings for him. It was somewhat entrancing, but there was something wrong with the shape of her attraction, something sick. "You mean my scars? You don't want to be close to me, Feyon. They're a death sentence."

  She pressed further forward, her face flushing. "I like it." She reached out to touch his arm, trying to peel back his sleeve, but he pulled away. "Won't you let me touch them again?"

  "It's not that…" he began, confused now, looking into her wide eyes as she pressed her face close to his. Her breath brought a heat to his cheeks, a desire he'd never felt before. She really was beautiful, intoxicating even, but still he could feel the sickness bubbling underneath.

  "You can kiss me, if you like," she breathed, and closed her eyes. He studied her face, so beautiful but basted with a thick layer of painted creams. Her red hair hung down in ringlets strewn with twisted flowers, and he wondered how long it had taken her serving ladies to prepare them. She wasn't real, just like the grave he'd uncovered, just like his mother.

  "This is wrong," he said.

  Her hands rose to his shoulders and he felt her touch even through the layers of cloth, the sick feeling rising with images of a child in the street screaming, and Adjunc. She gave a shiver of pleasure. "It's all right, Sen. I won't tell. We'll be married soon enough."

  He jerked back at that.

  "Married?" The confusion of the last few days blended with this new feeling, and turned to anger. "What are you talking about?"

  * * *

  He was cold.

  It didn't make sense to her. She'd seen her mother do this a dozen times, bringing footmen and valets back behind some pillar, winking to Feyon as she made them rise to her attention, stroking their chests, running her fingers through their hair. It had been an education. The boy was lucky that she'd taken such pains to invite him here.

&
nbsp; And now he threw it back in her face.

  "I didn't come here for this," he said, his voice loud now in that dark space. He gave her a light push and stepped back himself. "And you think my scars are exciting? They're a curse, Feyon, and you're a fool if you think anything else."

  "A fool?" she said, drawing herself up. This wasn't going how she expected, but she wouldn't be made a joke of. "I am a lady of the Roy!"

  He looked at her as though he were making a judgment. It at once appalled and excited her.

  "I'm not another doll, Feyon, I'm not here for your amusement," he held up the doll of her sister. "All of this is wrong. Do you even know where your sister is?"

  "She went away," she said sharply, a mantra grooved into her mind with repetition. "Over the seas."

  Sen laughed. "She's dead, Feyon. Don't you see that?" He stabbed at the mark on the doll's back. "This fated her, and the Adjunc killed her in the street. Don't you remember?"

  A flash of memory stung in her mind, something she'd worked all her life to forget. He took her hand and the image was there again, stronger this time: her big sister screaming at the gates as the Adjunc peeled away her skin, slapping blood everywhere, killing her while her mother and father watched helpless.

  "I see it in you," he said, his voice hot and urgent now, "which means you remember it, but you've blocked it out, and made a liar out of yourself." He let go of her hand and looked her up and down. "It's all lies, Feyon, your clothes, your face, the bells in your hair, and you're a fool to believe it, just like me. You're a fool, and I would not kiss you if you were the last girl alive."

  She slapped him then, hard. The sound of her palm on his cheek rang out like her father's blunderbuss, driving away her uncertainty and filling her with an anger she'd never known.

  "You do not talk to me like that! I am a lady of the house Gravaile, and I will not…"

  "Will not what?" he interrupted, even as a mark in the shape of her hand rose up red on his cheek. "Deign to kiss me? You don't know a thing about who I am, Feyon. You may be high-caste, but you're pathetic. You're just a pretty ring on your mother's finger, how could I ever want to kiss someone as pathetic as you?"