by Sarah Ash
The last light of the fading moon showed him the freshly dug earth of a new grave.
‘Well, here I am,’ he said out loud.
The only sound was the shiver of leaves in the breeze off the river. He sat down in the long grass. He would keep vigil throughout the rest of the night beside Acir’s grave. It seemed the only fit thing to do in the circumstance. Tomorrow he would go and see Asper about a memorial stone; he would raise the money somehow.
But now… he would keep watch till morning.
In the twilight, the waters of the River Avenne glint grey.
Acir is dead.
Overcome with grief, Khassian sinks to his knees on the damp bank, weeping.
‘Amaru…’
A voice is calling him, calling his name. He raises his tear-wet face and gazes out across the grey riverwaters. A figure stands on the far bank, a man, half-clothed in shadow.
The man moves towards the river, his hand held out in welcome. Starlight glimmers in his silver hair which falls loose about his shoulders.
‘Acir?’ Khassian’s heart leaps within his breast. ‘But I thought –’
‘Amaru.’ Acir’s hand beckons him.
And Khassian, as though pulled by a will stronger than his own, finds himself gliding across the river, gliding towards the still-beckoning figure, passing between crumbling walls into a garden.
Acir stands, smiling at him, a warm smile, a tender smile.
Then he draws open the loose robes he wears, baring his left breast. The tattooed rose is weeping tears of blood: one by one they splash on to the ground.
And where the dark drops of blood fall, Khassian sees a green shoot pushing up through the earth, its leaves unfurling as he watches, astonished, until a crimson bud appears at the tip.
Acir plucks the Rose and hands it to Khassian. It glows, red as sunset, in his cupped hands, its perfume dark as incense.
Jerame Magelonne slept restlessly, starting awake whenever the diligence ran over a rut in the road. Cook’s message had arrived as he was packing his valise, confirming the information delivered by one of Girim nel Ghislain’s agents: Orial was back in Sulien.
He was only too glad to be leaving Bel’Esstar; the city was a slow-fizzing powder keg of dissent, primed and ready to explode. Though what faced him on his return was none too inviting: an empty Sanatorium; unpaid bills; creditors – the possibility of financial ruin.
But what did it matter, so long as Orial was restored to him? He could face an uncertain future with equanimity if she was at his side. There was still a reason for continuing.
He dozed off again, rocked by the steady motion of the diligence’s wheels…
Orial floating, face down in the green waters of the Avenne. Orial dragged limp and lifeless from the river, water running from her slack mouth, her weed-trailed hair –
‘Ahh!’ he cried out as he awoke – to see the disapproving faces of the other passengers regarding him with suspicion.
‘A – a dream,’ he said, embarrassed. Yet even his embarrassment could not dispel the unpleasant taste which lingered after the dream had fled – or the growing anxiety.
The closed Constabulary carriage stopped outside the Asylum. Orial had shrunk into the corner, hugging her arms to her.
She must not let them commit her. Once committed, she would never escape Tartarus’s clutches. She would never fulfil her task.
She must get away.
Constable Alterre opened the door and climbed out. The cloudy sky was streaked with the first light of dawn. Birds had begun to whistle and call in the stillness.
Beyond the stark walls of the Asylum she could just glimpse the river marshes and the faint gleam of the Avenne.
Constable Alterre had rung the bell-pull and was standing waiting for the porter to answer.
Now. While his attention was distracted.
She slipped out of the carriage and tiptoed around the back, one step at a time. The rough gravel grazed her bare feet.
‘Hey!’
They had seen her.
‘Come back here!’
She turned and ran towards the marshes.
‘Stop! Stop!’ The constables were after her.
She slipped on the dew-wet grass, forced herself back up, on towards the tall reed-beds. Her sides ached with running, her nightgown was mired and wet, yet still she stumbled on.
They would never find her in the reeds.
Khassian awoke with a groan. He was stiff, he was damp with dew… And he had meant to keep vigil all night.
Now the sun was up.
He sat up, stretching his aching body.
The freshly dug earth of Acir’s grave was a brown scar against the silvered grass.
A spray of green had pierced the rich earth. Fresh green.
A rose was growing in the red soil. Tender new leaves surrounded a single bud.
Where had it come from?
Khassian extended his hand – and then swiftly withdrew it. Black thorns, hooked and vicious, protected the single bloom.
His skin suddenly chilled as if the sun had been covered by fast-moving cloud. He glanced up. There were no clouds in sight.
Maybe Asper had planted it last night? Maybe he had taken a cutting from the white rose rambling over the broken wall… although Khassian was almost certain from the furled petals that this rose would prove to be red.
Crimson red. Red as heartblood.
‘Orial at Asylum. Come at once. Tartarus.’
Jerame read the blotted note for the tenth time and scrunched it into a ball in his sweating hand. The fiacre had slowed to a crawl. The street was noisy with shouting and arguing. People were milling around, some bearing placards and banners. A rhythmic chant was building as they made their way to the Temple. One or two began to thump in time on the side of the fiacre as they walked past.
‘Bury our dead!’
‘Respect for the dead!’
‘Open the reservoirs!’
Jerame leaned out and called up to the driver, ‘Hurry! I said, hurry!’
‘The road’s blocked ahead.’
‘Then turn around, take another route. But be quick!’
‘There she is!’ Tartarus said to himself.
Moving slowly like a sleepwalker through the reed-beds, her wet feet bare, her hair drifting in the breeze, the white nightgown slipping off one shoulder, Orial looked more like a river-nymph than a madwoman.
The reeds grew in the river shallows… but the bank suddenly shelved steeply beyond – many drowning spans deep into black mud.
He came closer.
He must not startle her. If surprised in this precarious state, she would almost certainly throw herself into the water
And then she looked up, half-seeing him, half-seeing through him.
Her eyes.
Tartarus – who had witnessed many bizarre physical manifestations in his time as Asylum Director – shuddered.
The brilliant rainbow colours had vanished.
Dulled eyes, drowned eyes, muddied as the reflected riverwater.
‘Orial,’ he called lightly, coaxingly.
She seemed not to hear.
He edged a little closer to the bank.
‘Orial,’ He beckoned invitingly, raising the restraint-shroud he had brought. ‘You must be cold. Come. I have a shawl to wrap around your shoulders.’
The whispering sigh of the reeds as they moved to the breath of the breeze was the only reply.
She turned away and began to wade further out into the reed-beds. Water lapped around her legs, staining the trailing robe with green. Beyond, the wide Avenne glistened in a brief sunslick, deceptively placid beneath the cloudy sky.
He had no choice but to go in after her.
But then, he reasoned, as he kicked off his buckle-shoes and peeled off his hose, he would have no choice now but to use his machine on her. And for that it was worth getting his feet wet.
His toes sank down into the river-ooze. It was far colder than he h
ad anticipated and emitted a mephitic gaseous odour that almost made him choke. Decaying river-weed and a green scum of algae clung to his legs.
But in his mind he was already strapping his wayward river-nymph into the treatment chair, he was pressing the metal helmet on to her reed-bedraggled hair. She would be his triumph. The triumph of science over superstition. No more nonsense about Faer Folk or rainbow eyes.
The two constables appeared on the bank.
He waved to them to keep down, to fan out. If he could hold her attention, the other two could creep up on her unnoticed.
He lost his balance, almost falling face first into the noisome waters, grasping at the fragile reeds to steady himself.
Cursing, Tartarus tried to brush the mud-spatter from his clothes. The slender reeds had scratched his palms; the reek of the black mud filled his nostrils.
It would be necessary to administer a strong charge to the right hemisphere of the brain. At the touch of his hand, the power-spark surged into her. Her slender body convulsed, juddered…
Was it his imagination? Or did the noisome air suddenly smell fresh and sweet as a spring dawn?
And then his vision cleared and he was only looking at a poor, mad thing, a chit of a girl who had lost her wits and was half-naked, dirty and bedraggled.
‘Set us free…’
Whenever Orial shut her eyes, she could still see them, the Dead, raising their shrivelled hands to her, their decaying eyes lit with the mephitic fire of marsh gas.
She lifted her hands to her throbbing head, rocking to and fro.
Dead voices filled her mind, spirit voices, soul voices…
‘The Lotos blooms on the dark waters.’
‘The Lotos Princess opens her arms to receive us.’
‘The sacred springs flow again.’
The waters called to her. Beneath the cool, green Avenne lay silence – an end to the incessant clamour.
‘Open the gates and let us pass through into the light.’
Walk out into the waters… sink slowly beneath the gently flowing river… seek the eternal silence of the drowning deeps.
River goddess, rock me gently to sleep…
Orial closed her eyes – and threw herself into the Avenne.
CHAPTER 26
As the fiacre approached the Asylum, Jerame saw the huddle of figures gathered on the riverbank.
‘Dear Goddess, no. Please, no!’
The fiacre drew to a halt in front of the Asylum, the wheels sending up a spray of gravel.
‘Wait here!’
He tried to run but his legs had lost their strength; he seemed to be wading through water, not air.
As he approached, one by one, they drew aside revealing the drowned girl lying on the bank.
‘Orial,’ he said brokenly.
Dropping to his knees beside her, he fumbled for a pulse, listened for a breath. His hands shook so much he could hardly control them.
Tartarus put one hand on his shoulder. He was drenched to the skin, trembling with cold.
‘I’m sorry, Jerame. It’s too late.’
‘There’s still a faint pulse, I can feel it –’
‘I tried everything. I emptied the water from her, I breathed air into her mouth – nothing works.’
‘No, no, I’m sure – look!’ He cradled her limp body in his arms. ‘She’s just cold. Cold and wet. She’ll revive. She’ll be all right once I get her home. I’ll make her warm and dry.’
He picked her up and went slowly back towards the waiting cab, staggering under the drowned weight of her body.
Amaru Khassian the unbeliever stared at the Rose.
In the few hours since he had first seen it, the single flower had swelled from bud to bloom. Now it trembled on the brink of unfurling its petals, petals that were crimson, dark blood-crimson.
The Rose that sprang from the breast of the dead Poet-Prophet Mhir had been red as heart’s blood. And the Blood of the Rose had brought the dying Elesstar, Elesstar the Beloved, back to life.
Why was he – the cynic, the unbeliever – the one to discover this mystery?
And why here, why in Sulien?
Sulien was a place where ancient beliefs and customs persisted, where past and present mingled inextricably. A place beyond time.
Anything might happen here.
If the Rose could bring Elesstar back from the dead, could it also restore a fractured mind?
Could it heal Orial?
Khassian ran across the river towards Pump Street and the Sanatorium, tugging at the bell-pull as best he could with both hands.
Cook answered the door. Her eyes looked red and raw, her lined cheeks were wet with tears.
‘Orial!’ Khassian said between gasps for breath. ‘I must see her.’
‘You c-can’t see her now, sieur.’
‘Can’t see her?’ Something was wrong, terribly wrong, Khassian could sense it.
‘Oh, sieur, she’s – she’s dead. Drowned.’ Cook shook her head, one hand covering her mouth as though to hold back her sobs.
Dead.
The air went dark.
‘Oh no, no…’ Khassian felt as if he was falling from a great height into blackness. ‘She can’t be dead!’
‘She’s gone, sieur. There’s nothing anyone can do. He’s laid her in the treatment room – but now he won’t let anyone near. I’m afraid – afraid he may do himself some mischief.’
Too late.
‘No!’ Khassian howled aloud.
A strange and aromatic fragrance drifted through the neglected cemetery; a rich, dark scent redolent of musk roses and incense.
The Rose had opened.
Its crimson petals had the velvet bloom of black grapes; as Khassian came slowly, wonderingly, closer, the scent grew stronger, potent as red wine.
And there, at the heart of the Rose, glistening in the dappled evening light, drops of dark moisture, redder than heart’s blood.
He knelt beside the grave and reached out to pluck the Rose.
The Rose was not to be plucked.
The black thorns pricked his hands, tearing the burned flesh. Pain flared through his fingers, bright as fire. He gritted his teeth against the pain. He must endure this for Orial’s sake.
The stem suddenly snapped and he found himself holding the precious flower head in his cupped hands.
The door to the Sanatorium was open.
Khassian, carrying the precious Rose, walked in unchallenged.
Dame Tradescar and Cook stood at the doorway to Dr Magelonne’s office. When they saw Khassian, they drew aside to let him pass.
Khassian went in – and then, seeing what lay within, faltered.
Orial’s body lay on the couch, riverwater still dripping on to the floor from her wet hair, her trailing fingers. Jerame Magelonne knelt at the foot of the couch, his face buried in the folds of her gown.
It was not the pallor of her skin that terrified Khassian but the absence of movement. She who had been so vibrant in life now lay still, silent.
Jerame Magelonne raised his head from the couch and stared at Khassian with eyes that burned dark with hatred.
‘What are you doing here? You have no right.’
‘Let the boy pay his respects,’ said Cook.
Khassian came slowly forward. The Rose burned his bleeding fingers – but its musky perfume filled the room, darkly heady as rare Enhirran spices.
Jerame sprang up, placing himself between the couch and Khassian.
‘Keep away from her! Don’t touch her!’
Jolaine Tradescar went to Jerame, catching hold of him by the arm.
‘Leave the boy alone. Let him do what he has come to do!’
Khassian drew closer.
Her mouth gaped slightly open.
Khassian held the soft petals until they brushed her grey lips and watched as the dark roseblood seeped between them.
A dark column of rose-red smoke swirled up, enveloping Orial and Khassian in a cloud of fragrance – and i
n the heart of the smoke burned a searing, cleansing shaft of flame.
Cradled in darkness, she has lain here lulled by the lapping waters. How long? Time has no meaning.
A bolt of gold suddenly penetrates the darkness, dazzling sun-splinters shiver off into the waters like firesparks.
A splinter of light pierces her eyes.
Daylight.
A splinter pierces her heart. A blaze of sun lights her breast, a pain so vivid it burns white across her darkened vision.
Awake.
Alive.
Khassian opened his eyes.
Everyone was cowering away, their eyes covered, as if to shield them against a light too bright to endure.
The Rose in his hands was burned to ashes.
And sitting up, staring dazedly around her through her strands of wet hair – was Orial Magelonne.
‘Illustre?’ she said, gazing questioningly into his eyes.
‘Orial.’ He reached out to her… and the rosedust fell between his fingers and drifted to the floor.
Tremblingly she raised her hands towards his – and he felt her fingers enfold his.
‘Orial,’ he repeated. He could find no words to express his feeling of wonder, could only repeat her name, over and over again.
She raised one hand to touch his cheek.
‘Goddess save us,’ Cook cried in a faint voice. ‘She’s alive!’
The Priestess set out from the Temple in a black sedan chair, carried by acolytes.
Passers-by stopped to watch the bizarre procession winding its way towards Dr Magelonne’s Sanatorium; the curious followed in its wake and soon a small crowd had gathered in Pump Street.
The black chair meant only one thing: a death.
The Priestess descended from the chair and entered the Sanatorium. Her head was covered in black veils so that none should see her face.
News travels fast in Sulien. A journalist from the Sulien Chronicle sketched in a headline: ‘Eminent Doctor Bereaved a Second Time in Drowning Tragedy’ and, grabbing his notebook, hurried to the Sanatorium to get the details.
I must be dreaming.
Jerame pinched his arm, deliberately taking a fold of skin between finger and thumb, twisting until he winced. The pain was real enough. Unless he was dreaming he was pinching himself. What he was witnessing negated everything in his training as a student of science, a student of medicine. It could not be.
