‘I will not see you again before you go. Hanji will bring you my standard and help you find the White Road. Go tonight.’
Quintar nodded assent, his usually sober face lighting with anticipation. Yes, he was young. She reached out and touched his shoulder, aware that the gesture was too weak, too feminine, for such a martial occasion. Yet when she thought of Jai Pendu, she could not bring herself to pretend she felt powerful.
‘Farewell,’ she said, and turned away, trying not to hunch with the ache in her spine as she reached for the door. The clash of weapons answered her but she didn’t look back at the men in whose prowess she placed all her hope. These were men who loved the fight above all. They lived for it. Her heart swelled with pride and she began to laugh. They would succeed at Jai Pendu. She could feel it.
The door closed behind her. It was the last she would ever see of the Company.
Eighteen Years Later
The clatter of fast-flying hooves on stone jarred the youngest blacksmith of the Deer Clan at A-vi-Khalar from exhausted sleep. A thin, runny light intimated the place where dawn would crack the northern sky; the time couldn’t be much more than an hour past midnight. The blacksmith rolled over, groping for his wife. As the hoofbeats passed by his window, a voice bellowed in an army accent. ‘A horse! Bring out the king’s horse!’
Another messenger. He moaned softly. He ached all over. Yesterday he had worked a brutal double shift in the Fire Houses forging weapons for the defenders in the mountains; he needed more sleep, a reprieve for both mind and muscles. But it was not to be. Duty to one’s Clan always came first, and he was the youngest; he would have to go down to the stables and get the royal courier horse ready … in his mind he was rolling out of bed, gliding outside to open the stall, checking the hooves, and—
The rider passed again going the other way, still shouting for a horse at the top of his lungs. The blacksmith started from his dreamlet and groaned.
‘Dzani, get up before the whole Clan’s disturbed,’ his wife chided sleepily, shoving him. The blacksmith grabbed his shirt and staggered into the street. The brightly coloured tiles that paved the road were dulled with fine ash from the Fire Houses, which had burned all night for months: the cones of the ancient structures could be seen presiding over the village, their blackened shapes resisting the onset of dawn. Geese were running to and fro in the grey light, flapping their wings and generally adding to the cacophony.
From the noise being made, the blacksmith had expected a restive horse, prancing and rearing, and a royal messenger wearing red and sporting elaborate face-paint showing both Clan affiliation and rank within King Lerien’s house at Jai Khalar. But the coat of the black horse was soaked with lather and sending up clouds of steam, the harness and saddle skirts were mud-caked, and the animal’s head sagged towards the ground in weariness. The rider was dressed in scarred leather battle gear and the hood of his stained green cloak was cast back so that the dew settled on ragged, uncombed brown hair. He was not young. His beard had grown at least three days, and when he dismounted, he stumbled before catching the reins and steadying himself.
‘I’m sorry to wake you.’ His soldier’s accent was even more pronounced when he wasn’t shouting. ‘I need your fastest horse, and’ – his mount strained towards the blacksmith’s trough, and the stranger swayed and almost lost his balance again – ‘and please fetch your boy to walk this one until she is cool. I hope I have not misused her.’
Dzani had begun unsaddling the horse even as the stranger spoke; now he gave a sharp whistle. His older daughter scurried out of the house barefoot to prise the reins from the soldier’s fingers. Before the man was aware of it, she had, looped a rope around the animal’s neck and led it away. The blacksmith hoisted the warm, damp saddle on to his shoulder and motioned for the stranger to follow him to the stable. He took a good look at the saddle. The king’s crest was embossed on the leather, but he could see no similar mark on the man’s clothing. He wore no Clan paint at all, nor any ornament that would identify him. Dzani noticed the messenger’s bloodshot eyes and his pallor. The blacksmith paused outside the kitchen door.
‘Go inside and get something to eat while I tack the horse. It won’t hold you up but a minute.’
‘The mare – she’s been going hard,’ said the stranger weakly, looking guilty. ‘She must be walked for a time and if you crack an egg in her mash—’
‘My daughter will take care of her,’ Dzani interrupted, amused. Before the other could protest, he added caustically, ‘Now, get some breakfast. Fine lot of good will be done if the mount arrives at the Citadel bearing a dead man.’
He half expected the stranger to take offence – the king’s men could be very touchy about being tendered respect – but the man laughed hoarsely and said, ‘Thanks, friend – you’re right.’
Dzani entered the dim stable, whose occupants were still dozing.
‘Wake up, you lazy sods,’ he called, and emitted a huge yawn.
In the kitchen, the blacksmith’s wife had quickly heated soup and carved the stale crusts from yesterday’s bread. The messenger came in, bowed to her, and sank on to the bench. When she turned from the oven, he had fallen asleep with his face on the table. She finished preparing the food and set it on the boards, but he didn’t stir. She hesitated, unsure whether she should wake him – and then the scabbard of his sword caught her eye. It bore no Clan marking. It was dark blue, and the insignia was an eye, a stylized sun, and a rose. Recognizing it, she felt herself flush and stood there frozen for a moment – then, without making a conscious decision, she quickly reached out and shook his shoulder. He sat bolt upright; the soup slopped on the table. He favoured her with a broken-toothed smile and a nod of thanks before falling to. The blacksmith’s wife hovered.
‘Please … sir …’ she ventured, clasping her hands behind her back because suddenly she didn’t know what to do with them. She deliberately averted her eyes from the scabbard. ‘These tidings you carry to the king … is battle to come even here?’
He drained the soup bowl and set it down. He stared at the wood, and it seemed as though he was gripped in some inner struggle. Suddenly he slammed his palm down on the table; crumbs leaped into the air. She jumped in her skin.
‘My message can only be given to the king himself.’
She had already slid back fearfully, bumping into the hot stove and then recoiling. ‘I see. Of course. I’m sorry—’
He was shaking himself like a wet dog, blinking rapidly as he brushed dishevelled locks back from his face. His gaze fixed on her and he seemed to take her measure for a moment. His eyes were bloodshot. She relaxed slightly as she realized he had only slapped the table in an effort to wake himself. Emboldened, she searched his face, expecting to find tragedy there – but she only saw exhaustion.
‘Are you all right?’ she whispered. ‘Do you want me to brew some sita for you?’
Still looking at her, he reached for a handful of bread and cheese and surged to his feet. ‘I am sorry,’ he said as he passed her on the way out. ‘Battle is coming to this whole land, even to the Citadel. Prepare yourselves!’
By the time Dzani had a fresh horse ready, a handful of children and old women had straggled into the courtyard to see the messenger. They looked small and dull among the soaring, brightly frescoed Everien houses, and their hands were work-reddened. The blacksmith thought, not for the first time, that more of the Deer Clan’s men ought to have stayed behind, for there would be little for the soldiers to come home to at the rate things were going. Sometimes he even thought of leading his family off into the western hills, where they might eat only berries and rabbits, but where the Sekk might not find them to Enslave and torture them. Not that the greybeards of the Deer Clan would ever accede to such a plan. They still dreamed of Everien as one great country ruled from Jai Khalar, its ancient cities bright with jewelled flame as of old. He wondered if the Knowledge that the elders wrought in the Fire Houses had turned their minds.
; Dzani gave the messenger a leg up, fearing that otherwise he would be too weak to mount the tall grey gelding – an older animal, but the best horse this branch of the Clan possessed.
‘The bridge four miles from here was washed out last month,’ he offered. ‘In case you’re new in these parts. You don’t look like the king’s messengers we usually see.’
Still chewing voraciously, the stranger gathered the reins and looked down on the blacksmith. A flash of humour crossed his tired face as he swallowed.
‘I’m not the king’s messenger, nor even one of his subjects,’ he replied, and expertly turned the animal towards the street. ‘But his horses will have to suffice me in my need. Thanks for your hospitality.’
The grey horse dipped its head slightly and shot off like a yearling. There were a number of protests and startled cries, and Dzani fell back a pace, dismayed. The faces of his people turned to him for explanation.
‘Did you just give the king’s horse to some brigand?’ someone called.
‘If I did, so did Geiri at the next station up the line,’ Dzani said defensively. ‘That’s a royal horse he rode in on.’
‘What Clan was he then, eh? He’s not of the Deer Clan, that’s certain.’
An argument began, with several children running down the street after the horse and the old women speculating colourfully as to Dzani’s fate when his mistake was discovered.
Then the blacksmith’s wife laughed.
‘You’re all fools. Did you not see the sword he carried? Did you not see the scabbard?’
They looked at her as if she were mad.
‘He wears the sign of the Eye, the Sun, and the Rose.’
In the growing daylight she saw their faces change.
‘That was Tarquin the Free.’
She flushed again when she said it.
Jai Khalar
He had been riding forever; his legs, his tailbone, his back would never forgive him. Days without sleep becoming nights of the winding road pale as a river under moonlight, and always the horse’s gait like a second heartbeat – they wove into a continuity that flattened and dimmed his perceptions and his thoughts. The excitement of the first day’s ride from the mountains above Ristale was long gone, and since then he had done all he could to keep his spirits up. He’d rehearsed his speech to King Lerien a thousand times; he had strategized and considered every angle on the news he brought, every tactical and political consequence. These ruminations led his mind back eighteen years, to a time when he himself had been at the centre of the war against the Sekk and the doings of Jai Khalar had meant everything to him. The decisions he had made in those days seemed now dim and somehow misguided. Flashes of regret and despair and most of all confusion, all vestiges of a long-abandoned self, had ridden with him day after day towards the Citadel.
Now, as the sun blazed free of the peaks and rose towards noon and the road unravelled through the last fields below the walls of the Citadel of Jai Khalar, there seemed to be nothing left in his mind. He passed one caravan bringing goods commandeered from the farms; a handful of fresh soldiers marching away from the Citadel to their postings in the hills; and the dead returning in slow carts driven by old men. Otherwise the road was deserted. He was too tired to initiate greetings and unaware of the grey, resolute lines carving his own face that discouraged approach from any but the boldest. He was half dreaming in the saddle, and the landscape took on an indistinct, surreal quality. He might well have been travelling back in time: eighteen years of self-imposed exile were wiped away as the familiar features of the mountains rose to either side like the legacy of another lifetime.
The topography had changed during the course of his journey south. Even in the north whence he had travelled, the mountains that bounded Everien stood dramatic and steep-sided. At the southern end of Everien their angles intensified and the valley became a tapering canyon. Sheer white cliffs rose to either side of the road, which followed the course of a small river upstream, traversing a strip of flat farmland only a few miles wide. The very depths of the valley would be untouched by light in the depths of winter, a lake of shadowed snow passable only by sled; but it was high summer and the shores of the river burgeoned with ripening grain. The canyon deepened as its floor sank towards sea level, until the cliffs rose many thousands of feet to either side, finally converging to frame a natural gate through which was revealed a hazy view of the tidal plain to the south. The main road led this way, over the border of Everien and into the flatlands beyond, coming eventually to the Floating Lands and the sea itself; but Tarquin had no wish to go that way, not ever again. Not in this lifetime.
It was a strange thing, though, how he could not keep his head from turning that way. Even as he took the fork in the road that followed the river to its source in the foot of the cliffs beneath Jai Khalar, he found himself glancing to the right, where a snatch of softness marked the termination of Everien in a gauzy mist of sea light. Between the stark cliffs the gates of Everien left a gap like a milky gem polished to dream smoothness. He shivered and made himself think of swords rending flesh. It was the only way to clear his mind.
Often he had imagined how easy it would be for an army to sweep in from the plains and take the entire land of Everien, which was otherwise protected by natural barriers. It seemed ironic that the safest part of the land should be here, at this apparently open door on the very edge of the wild country. The rest of Everien, though sheltered by mountains, contended with attack by the Sekk and their minions – human and otherwise – almost daily. Yet here where the valley was most vulnerable, no troops or garrison were to be seen. Queen Ysse had laid claim to this part of the valley in Tarquin’s youth, beating back the ghostly Sekk and awakening the Knowledge that had opened Jai Khalar, which had become the shelter of her people. For it was the Citadel that defended Everien against enemies old and new – the Citadel hidden up in the white cliffs, standing guard over the passage to the sea.
The invisible Citadel.
Tarquin had acquired the ability to see Jai Khalar, but only at a great price. To everyone else it was undetectable from outside. Though the Clans had lived under its protection for many years now, the Citadel and much of the Knowledge it contained remained mysterious to them. Carved from the mountain’s flanks by the art of the vanished Everiens, Jai Khalar could only be perceived via a subtle enchantment that could steal into the very bones and render the impossible real. Each tower and wall, each window and crenellation and rooftop of the Citadel had been artfully constructed to mimic the appearance of natural stone … most of the time. As a rule, Jai Khalar was indistinguishable from the mountain itself. Yet every so often, as if at random, the Citadel would release a glimpse, an image of itself in all its staggering glory: layer upon layer of walls receding towards the sky; towers, seemingly unsupported, jutting out into thin air; buildings of strange geometrical design, with triangular and even round windows, some of them winking with coloured glass. The impression would last only long enough to print itself on Tarquin’s eye, as if to remind him of its great power held in check; then the craggy and lumpy mountainside would reassert itself and the road would appear to lead to a simple cave at the bottom of a great cliff.
As Jai Khalar’s architecture began to resolve out of the pale stone, its strange lines and uncanny surfaces brought him too many memories; they added to the burden of dark tidings carried a great distance in haste. He was unready for this. He had always known he would have to return some day – had known it with the kind of dreadful certainty that came from the marrow of his bones – but eighteen years wasn’t long enough to be gone from a place that he associated with the breaking of his own mind.
For nothing here would ever be straightforward. Already he could feel the Knowledge of Jai Khalar preying on him. Maybe it was simple exhaustion, but grey areas were starting to appear in his vision, and since this morning he had been hearing music coming from somewhere over his left shoulder. How he would cope with telling enchantment from reality
once he was inside the Citadel was anybody’s guess.
He rode on doggedly towards the cave.
The modest notch in the white face of the cliffs had grown as he drew near; now it was a high, arching entrance wide enough to accommodate fifty horses abreast. To Tarquin’s right, the river flowed fast and deep from a second aperture in the stone: he could hear the water singing as it issued from the darkness. As the horse and rider passed inside, daylight yellowed and dimmed. Currents of air whirled and danced around the horse’s legs. After only a short distance, the road grew smooth and the hooves ceased to echo. The path began to descend, curving and sinking until light and sound were somewhere far above. Darkness pressed close. The animal must be depending on sense of smell alone, for he slowed and finally stopped. Tarquin gently encouraged him with a slight shift of weight. The gelding’s head dropped and the muscles of his forequarters loosened as the descent grew steeper. He twisted sharply around a corner and then another and another until Tarquin lost all sense of direction. The floor levelled, and faint grey illumination began to appear. The horse continued forward, bearing Tarquin into a large chamber. Light flared from a great rectangular aperture in the floor; he dismounted and looked down into the hole. There was nothing but vacant blue.
The horse was not bothered, but Tarquin’s stomach pitched. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and led the horse down into the sky.
But down was not down: it was up – far up. And the sky, of course, was not sky but the white city of Jai Khalar.
Through some means Tarquin would never understand, with a single stride they had come to be standing on a broad promenade that overlooked the valley floor. The road that led to the cave had shrunk to a narrow dun band, partially obscured by the guard wall that provided some relief from the vertigo Tarquin felt when he emerged on to this exposed shelf. The atmosphere was curiously still, for despite its height the Citadel was positioned in a sheltered aspect from the worst of the mountain winds – in fact, it would not have been difficult to believe that the view of the farmlands beneath was simply a mural, so distant did it appear.
The Company of Glass Page 2
