by Danie Ware
Selana Valiembor, last child of the House of Saluvarith. Lord Foundersdaughter of Fhaveon, ruler of the dying Varchinde – a tiny figure now curled below the great wooden headboard carven by her forebears. Her body twitched as if with some unseen plague, her eyes flickered beneath closed lids. Every few moments, a shudder went through her as if she fought some figment they could not see, strove to awaken herself from a nightmare beyond words.
Rhan watched over her as he always had, always would. Fhaveon was his home, his charge, his purpose. Without it…
The apothecary rubbed at his forearms, ventured, “My Lord?”
But the words rolled from the Seneschal like the chill, unheeded.
The old bed taunted Rhan with memories not his own, with crimes he’d not committed. Standing in this room, those shadows still flickered at the edge of his awareness, misdeeds unspeakable.
Misdeeds with which Phylos had taunted him: the murder of the Foundersson, this haunted child’s father. The rape of his wife.
Screaming. All the way down.
“My Lord?” the apothecary tried again.
Belatedly, Rhan realised he’d been asked a question.
“Wake her?” He looked up, stared at the apothecary for a moment. This was the man who’d found the bravery to defy Phylos’s bid for power and to spare the life of Mostak, military commander. He was now here, his slender body shuddering even as his Lord’s did likewise.
“Yes, my Lord. Should we wake her? From whatever figments torment her sleeping?”
The young man’s confusion was as tangled as the sheets, as loud as a shout in the night’s cool. He wasn’t asking for guidance, he was asking for Rhan to take responsibility for the decision.
Rhan recollected himself; shook away the loitering fears. He laid one white hand on the man’s shoulder, said gently, “I don’t think I know your name.”
“I’m Kallye, my Lord.” The apothecary gave a wary, weary chuckle. “I was with Tan Commander Mostak, if you remember, when—”
“I haven’t forgotten.” Rhan flickered a smile, gave the man a tight momentary clasp. “You’re owed a debt the city will respect and repay, given time. I trust your judgement, but wakening someone in nightmare is— Samiel’s teeth!”
Cutting him cold, Selana had sat upright and cried out, wordless and shattering-loud. Her eyes were wide open, staring, lit to uncanny intensity by a shutter-stripe of moonslight that fell across her face. She was breathing shallow and fast, her chest and shoulders shaking under her pale shift.
Kallye fell back, hands to his mouth. Rhan moved forwards, almost expecting her to speak, to utter some profound and obscure truth, some wondrous vision… but she only stared, her eyes crazed in that strip of light.
For a moment, she sat absolutely still – then she fell back to the huge bed as if she’d been hit in the face.
Her eyes closed. She shuddered, and was still.
Shivering, Kallye muttered, “Dear Gods.”
Rhan suppressed a shiver of his own. Selana’s gaze seemed burned into the air; two points of light seared into both of them, horror and flesh. Under her, the bed was crouched and angered, this vast beast that had embraced Lords for generations and now glowered round the last of them, protective or aggressive or both…
By the Gods! Enough!
Rhan drew a breath, shook himself free from whimsy and sat on the bed’s edge as if daring it. Carefully, he laid one hand on Selana’s fine, pale throat, feeling the flutter of life within. Kallye hovered, anxious and fidgeting, while Rhan watched the shadows that moved in the girl’s face, the back-and-forth flicker of her now-closed eyes.
He wondered what she could see.
And he wondered if he knew perfectly damned well.
Fool me once, my brother. But fool me twice?
Laughter sounded in his ears, his mind. Her eyes were open, staring at the bed’s fabric canopy with that same crazed intensity, that same appalling sear. Vahl himself was there in her gaze, was blazing—
Her eyes were closed.
Rhan shuddered, looked again. Her eyes were closed.
Lord Foundersdaughter Selana Valiembor slept like a little child, like she once had in her bassinet, her parents standing over her and glowing with love.
But Rhan stared at her as if those eyes held worlds unspoken, horrors checked only by vein-pale lids.
Are you in there, Vahl? Coiled? Waiting?
Rhan had won the fight for the city. Blazing white wrath, he’d torn his brother Kas Vahl Zaxaar asunder, rent Phylos’s flesh and his creatures of alchemy and stone. Long, long returns of plotting and patience and power, and all of it had been over in a brief, savage burn of glory. Phylos, for all his Archipelagan arrogance and ambition, had been broken beyond redemption or help – Rhan had few fears that the scheming Merchant Master would manifest in figment and market-tale undeath.
But Vahl…
That was another matter entirely. Four hundred returns, and Rhan could not believe that his brother would give up that easily.
Or are you just lost without him, Dael Rhan Elensiel, pointless and bereft of purpose?
And the truth of that thought was barbed.
On the bed, Selana had lost her childlike aspect. She was shaking again, her mouth moving wordless, framing fragments of images that lived only in her mind. Four hundred returns Vahl had led them to believe he’d been hiding on Rammouthe Island – just to keep their attention from Aeona. Surely…
Surely this was not just… what… wishful thinking?
The girl swallowed, shuddered again, and Rhan moved his hand, smoothing her hair back from her forehead.
Samiel’s bollocks, it was all shadows, dammit, he’d no idea what he was seeing – what was figment and what was real, what was in his head and what was in hers. Perhaps this was all just the price he was paying for the end of Penya’s specialist herbology.
Then, on the pallet, the Lord strung taut as a bowstring, her face stretched in a scream she couldn’t voice.
“Gods!” Kallye was there beside her, almost shoving Rhan and his doubts out of the way. He sat on the huge bed talking softly and stroking her pale hand for lack of any other way to help. Distress was etched into the long lines below his eyes, lines that carved his face with empathy and weariness and fear. He glanced back at Rhan, said, “Please, my Lord. Can you see… can you see what troubles her?”
“No more than I can see my own backside.” Rhan’s answer was subdued, his sardonic humour almost reflex. “I’m going in endless circles, Kallye – a nartuk chasing his tail.”
He stood up, watched the moonlight tumble through the shutters. “Old stories tell us such dream-figments are pieces of ourselves, manifest moments of our days, our hopes and fears.” From somewhere outside, voices were raised, chanting and jeering as if Fhaveon herself were sharing the nightmare of her Lord. There was a flare of flame.
Making a decision, Rhan said, “We must leave her.”
“What? Why?” The apothecary looked up in objection. “You can’t just leave her to—”
“I can and I will.” Rhan’s voice was stone, the foundation of the city herself. “You’ll have her watched, Kallye – I’ll watch her myself as I have the time.”
The apothecary looked at him, wide-eyed. “My Lord, please… You can’t leave her like this.”
“You’ve got a good heart.” Rhan gentled, freed the embroidered coverlet from the girl’s feet and straightened it. “But be wary, this may be only nightmare but it may also be more than it seems. I wish I could tell the difference.”
“What do you mean? More than what seems?”
“I don’t know.” So many doubts and shadows. Where were the ink patterns in her skin, those writhing sigils that marked Vahl’s presence? “Gods help me, I don’t know. Not yet. When she wakens, tell me.”
“Yes, my Lord.” Kallye’s voice was layered with reluctance and doubt.
The shouts from outside came again, further away. There were sounds of hooves, the
n a dull, uneasy boom.
The apothecary glanced up at the shutters, though there was nothing to see. “What’s happening out there?”
“Trouble,” Rhan said bleakly. He gathered a sigh. “Phylos may be gone, but his figments remain. I can feel them, moving through the city.” He caught Kallye’s eyes, made the words matter. “The Council is disbanded, the city’s in rubble, the terhnwood crop’s rotted. We have no markets, no trade, and we’ll run out of food before the winter is over. And even if we manage those miracles, there’s… there’ll still be other things to face. Other monsters.” He looked back down at the sleeping girl. “I want reports from the hospice, Kallye, first thing every morning. Numbers, symptoms, deaths. Everything. We have to get control of all of this.”
“Yes, my Lord.” The apothecary had withdrawn his hand from Selana’s sweating skin and was staring at her as if she’d manifest into some alchemical monstrosity.
Rhan gripped his shoulder, said, “It’ll be all right. Trust me.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
Rhan gave a brief grin. “You can, you know.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
From outside, there came a second boom, deeper and closer. The shutters juddered. Rhan tweaked a corner, looked down at the descending madness below – at the lights and flames and shouts and chaos that had once been the Lord city, the courage of the Varchinde.
Now in turmoil.
Phylos and his damned greed – between that and the blight, Fhaveon’s barely crawling. I’d pull his fool head off – if I hadn’t already.
He watched for a moment, the swarming and the desperation, then he gave a brief, bitter chuckle. If he stopped to think – to try to understand where his own responsibility for what had happened lay – it was too much. Throwing down Phylos had been Rhan’s first step towards his absolution…
…but there were still many more steps to take.
Who says the Gods don’t have a sense of humour?
He closed the shutter and turned back to the huge bed, to the tangle of slender girl within. In some ways, her unconsciousness was a mercy; she was at least spared the burden of trying to rebuild the shattered city. In her face, shadows shifted as if she dreamed of tragedy. Of rebuilding – with the winter climbing like frost about the walls. Rebuilding – with a populace terrified and hungry; with a military divided by flags and political rhetoric; with broken stone and little hope; and with a terrifying shortage of terhnwood and its corresponding trade. Her eyes flickered as if she followed his every thought. Rhan had sat content and unchallenged for so many returns, and now all of this was piling on his shoulders and he barely knew where to begin.
Whatever had happened to Vahl, the city had a very long way to go to reach the light.
There was a rap on the door – the short, efficient sound of the duty soldier.
Rhan checked a sigh, and stood up.
And wondered what else they could bring him.
* * *
Back at Garland House, the place still in scattered crates of confusion from Phylos’s brief occupancy, the Seneschal had a guest.
In Rhan’s wide main room, hands held before him in an attitude of glowering submission, stood a young man with familiar poise, his head and gaze lowered. His hair was knotted, his garments torn and his skin scattered with scratches and dirt. He looked like he’d been dragged here, and had fought every step.
When Rhan entered, he didn’t look up.
The Seneschal caught his breath.
Scythe.
Samiel’s teeth. They’d found Scythe.
There were two people on Rhan’s Most Wanted list – both of them laden with Phylos’s intentions for the future of the city. Scythe was one of them, Rhan’s administrator who had deferred to Phylos when the Merchant Master had come to power. The other was Ythalla, Phylos’s military commander, apparently fled for the city’s now-lawless skirting and still courting the divided soldiery.
Ythalla would know more – but Rhan’s issues with Scythe were personal.
Savage hope, sudden fear and a rush of opportunity all clamoured in his blood. For the moment, he stood unspeaking, staring at the head-down young man. He needed to be calm, to think about this.
Flanking Scythe was a city soldier in Palace colours. Her face was calm and cool, her eyes dark.
She gave him a curt nod. “My Lord Seneschal. You asked to be informed?”
“I did.”
At the sound of Rhan’s voice, Scythe lifted his chin far enough to look out from under his brows. It was a dark look of absolute loathing, a challenge laden with venom.
Do your damned worst. I dare you.
Rhan quelled the urge to grab the faithless little bastard by the neck of his shirt and shake him like an esphen. With effort, he responded only, “Thank you, tan. Please wait outside. I’ll call you if I need you.”
“My Lord.” Cool and efficient, the woman was gone from the room.
Scythe didn’t move but his gaze held Rhan’s, a silent smoulder of hate. Rhan watched him in return, unspeaking.
After a moment, Scythe raised his head.
“So,” he said. “Now what?” There was no fear in his tone; he oozed scorn. “Do we smoke the last of the eoritu or do we host an orgy? Or do you just execute me without a hearing?” He hawked and spat. “You treasonous bastard.”
“Treasonous?”
For a moment, the sensation of needing that hard, simple solution came again, stronger. Something in him wasn’t ready to tackle all of this, to untangle the political rhetoric and give new faith and purpose to soldiers, merchants and populace. Something in him wanted only the pure light, the release, to answer the man’s mocking challenge with the satisfaction of violence, purge the city’s turmoil with a flash of laughter and the thunder of pure, exultant power.
By the Gods, it would be so easy…
But that wasn’t the solution, not any more. The city below him was weak and chaotic, roiling with fear and fury. She needed to rally, to muster her resources, recover, and then to face the blight that had destroyed her terhnwood crop and now ate its way inwards, to the heart of the Varchinde.
Rhan gave Scythe a brief, brutal smile. Screaming for his death.
“No, Scythe. Nothing so… formal.” His voice was as cold as Scythe’s own. “My days of drugs and orgies are long gone. You and I are going to have a talk.”
* * *
The talk was a long one.
Much later, as the sky paled towards the winter dawn, Rhan stood on his balcony, looking out over the hurting city below.
The air was crisp and clear and cold, absolutely still; a light frost glittered on the balcony’s edge, chilling his hands. Calarinde, yellow moon, lost love, hung almost full; her pale brother smaller and higher, harder to see in the rising light. Under their watch, scattered down the zigzag streets, the rocklights were faint; from somewhere came the smell of burning. Rhan looked for the fire, for its reflection in the crystal trees, but couldn’t see it.
He was weary now; Scythe’s blood stained his skin.
In the stillness, he could hear Vahl’s voice.
Don’t you remember how she felt, Kas Rhan Elensiel? How she tasted? Calarinde rises in glory above you every night of your immortal life, and you can never touch her again… Samiel set you up, you fool, and then he damned you for it. And still, you’ve failed.
The scent of the smoke had faded, thinned into nothing. The light from the Goddess made the frost into gemstones.
Look at you. Indolent, selfish, bored. The world rotted because of you… I bring change, brother, new life. Progress.
The city seemed to hold her breath, listening.
Am I the daemon, Rhan?
Or are you?
Fhaveon should be waking – that view he’d watched so many times, mornings numberless and oblivious and…
Samiel’s teeth. The word was innocent.
Innocent mornings of peace, of hangovers, of damned blissful ignorance.
Down th
ere stirring in the half-light should be that early play of yawns and feet and voices, animals and wood smoke and brewing herbal. The faint thrub of hooves and the creak of wheels as the bazaars begin their morning; the flickers of sympathetic laughter at the winter’s chill in the air.
But there was nothing; the city only shifted with tension. She was restless, agitated, turning in on herself like an injured animal. Her streets were littered with the fallen – lives, leaves, debris, the cast down and the unwanted. Tan Commander Mostak, Selana’s uncle and military leader, had mustered what militia would follow him. He was clearing the mess leftover from the fighting: the dead and the wreckage, the remnants of the nightmares that had ripped from the walls and torn into the lives of the people… But too many had believed Phylos’s propaganda, and Rhan’s rivals still thundered their drums, even as he strove to stop them.
They were still finding the horned tattooed vialer hiding in the lower areas, or trying to flee for the trade-roads – the alchemical creatures were bold and unrepentant, mocking and vicious. Rhan’s request to locate their base – if they had one – had so far met with only failure, and he had few resources to spare.
Am I the daemon, Rhan?
He may have thrown Vahl down, torn Phylos a new one, but his Lord was damaged and his city ruined, devastated. Down there, opportunity came only to those who took it, merciless and uncaring – as the light rose, so grey figures scuttled from shadow to shadow, stealth and spy and ambush. Unable to trade, the people had gathered into hard communities to protect themselves, bunched into petty gangs and fiefdoms, guarding their tiny areas of land against each other and against the blight. Violence was everywhere, vicious, sporadic and harsh as coughing – as if Fhaveon was gasping for air.
Behind him, there was a sharp wet inhalation, a bloody and nasal splutter.
Sounds of struggling, movement.
Or are you?
Kas Rhan Elensiel.
Sometimes, Rhan figured, the line between himself and his brother was very thin indeed.
* * *
Sprawled out on the rug, Scythe was coming round, his face pulped with gore, several teeth cracked or missing. In the rocklight, Rhan’s knuckles and elbows were dark and bloody. There were Kartian craftmasters who’d elevated information retrieval to a delicate art based on touch and hearing, but Rhan had neither the time nor the skill.
