by Sarah Ash
She had been dead. Her heart had ceased to beat. And now she was alive, colour tinged her pale cheeks, she moved, she spoke.
‘Orial –’ he faltered.
She turned to him. ‘Oh, Papa.’
She knew him.
Khassian stood dazedly watching as Orial was smothered in the kisses and embraces of her family.
Jolaine Tradescar turned to him, her eyes moist with tears.
‘My boy, my boy!’ she cried, flung her arms about Khassian and hugged him. ‘You did it! You saved her!’
‘No,’ said Khassian shakily. He had been seared by holy fire. Shivers of heat from the burning Rose still flickered through his body, fierce as fever chills, intense as the dying pangs of ecstasy. ‘It was the Rose.’
Orial gazed at the well-loved faces gathered about her bed: Papa, Cook, Jolaine, Sister Crespine.
‘I have to go to the Temple,’ she said. ‘I know what has to be done.’
‘All in good time,’ said Papa, squeezing her hand. ‘When you’re well.’
‘You don’t understand. I have to go. It is not yet finished.’
‘You called me here to arrange a funeral, Jerame Magelonne, to minister to the dead. What does this mean?’
The Priestess stood in the doorway, swathed in her veils, dark as thunderclouds.
There was silence as the Magelonne household looked at each other in confusion. Then Cook found her voice.
‘A miracle,’ she said. ‘She was drowned. Dead. And the Rose brought her back to life. I never saw such a thing, not in all my born days.’
The Priestess came to Orial’s bedside and, to her astonishment, knelt beside her.
‘You stand between life and death. You are the one.’
‘I am?’ Orial’s eyes closed, letting her mind drift back towards the far bournes of consciousness.
‘You are the first since the fall of Sulien to come through the dark waters.’ The Priestess took hold of her hand, pressing it.
‘I hear them still,’ whispered Orial.
The sombre spirit-threnody still filled her mind. But now she understood, now she knew what she must do.
Once there had been other Lifhendil to spin the intricacies of the spirit-song that would summon the Eä-Endil. Now she was the only one of her kind. Only an exceptionally gifted musician could begin to match her Lifhendil skills…
Orial opened her eyes.
‘I can’t do it alone,’ she said. ‘I need Khassian.’
She saw him, pale and drawn with tiredness, amongst the watchers crowding in the doorway.
‘Amaru,’ she said, ‘we have to sing. We have to spin the song they taught me. It’s the key. It will make all right again. The music will set them free.’
CHAPTER 27
At the Hall of Justice in Bel’Esstar, the castrato Cramoisy Jordelayne had been brought before the Commanderie court. The public gallery was crowded with the citizens of Bel’Esstar, curious to see what had become of the singer who had once been the idol of the city. It was generally remarked that the Diva looked a mere shadow of his former self; pale, eyes squinting against the daylight, his face darkened with several ugly bruises. It was also rumoured that the shock of his imprisonment had caused him to lose his voice – and everyone knew what that meant for a castrato. Once the voice was gone, what remained? A dreary, humdrum existence eked out by coaching or composing…
The three judges – all wearing the insignia of the Rose, on crimson ribbons about their necks – entered and took their places at the bench. The most senior amongst them was the Grand Maistre of the Commanderie, Girim nel Ghislain.
‘Cramoisy Jordelayne – you stand accused of a capital crime; namely that you aided a convicted Sanctuaree to escape justice. How do you plead?’
The singer slowly raised his head.
‘Guilty.’
‘Guilty…’ The hushed murmur echoed around the gallery.
‘Are you aware of the severity of the crime you have committed? By admitting your guilt you oblige us to impose the death sentence. Perhaps you would care to reflect before your plea is set down?’
‘What else can you take from me? You took my manhood to preserve the beauty of my voice.’
The court stilled. Cramoisy was still a consummate performer; he knew how to move his audience. Everything he said appeared spontaneous, yet the nuances of inflection were perfectly timed.
He knew they were listening to every word.
‘I submitted to the castrating knife willingly, knowing my sacrifice was for my art. But now that my voice has gone, there’s little reason for living. So take my life. I’ll die happy – knowing I gave my life for the cause of freedom.’
‘Treasonable talk!’ cried one of the judges, rising from the bench. ‘Silence him!’
‘I will not be silenced!’ cried Cramoisy. ‘I speak on behalf of the musicians and artists you have persecuted. I speak for the people of Bel’—’
One of the Guerriors struck the singer across the face; Cramoisy staggered and fell sideways, one hand clasped to his mouth. Blood seeped between his clenched fingers.
A messenger entered the court, covered in dust.
‘Not now!’ cried one of the judges, waving him away.
‘It’s urgent, sieur.’ He came forward to the Grand Maistre and handed him a folded paper.
Girim opened and scanned it swiftly. Everyone was silent now, watching him keenly.
His face flushed and then went pale.
‘A miracle,’ he said hoarsely. ‘The Rose has bloomed again.’
‘What do you mean, Grand Maistre?’ asked one of the judges.
Girim got to his feet, still clutching the paper.
‘This court is adjourned. Take the castrato back to work at the Fortress. Inform the Prince at once. We ride to Sulien!’
Prince Ilsevir gazed out over the massed forces of the Commanderie: row upon row of mounted Guerriors lined up in the formal gardens of the Winter Palace awaiting his signal to start for Sulien.
He turned to Girim nel Ghislain who stood at his side.
‘I’m still uneasy about this, Girim.’
‘I’m leaving a whole detachment behind to guard the Sanctuary. You need have no fears about Bel’Esstar, Altesse.’
‘You misunderstand me,’ said Ilsevir. ‘This is a delicate matter. It requires diplomacy. We have no official invitation to cross into Tourmalise. It could provoke a… situation.’
Girim smiled. ‘War?’
‘An army crossing the mountains. It could be misinterpreted. It could be seen as an invasion. I wish you would wait until my ministers have communicated with the President of Tourmalise.’
‘This is not a matter of diplomacy! This is a spiritual matter, Altesse. We are Mhir’s chosen people. This is the sign we have been awaiting so long.’
‘And have you not asked yourself why the Poet-Prophet has not chosen to manifest Himself here? In Bel’Esstar, His city?’
‘It is a sign. The prophet shows us the true Way.’ Girim’s eyes strayed to the distant horizon, ‘He calls me to convert the people of Sulien, to turn them from their pagan beliefs to His truth.’
‘And if they do not wish to be converted?’
‘You are full of doubts, Prince. A true believer must put his doubts aside and follow the path of his faith, wherever it leads him.’
‘But to an unmarked grave in a foreign city? Suppose it’s a hoax?’
‘If it makes you any easier in your mind, Altesse, then I suggest you ride ahead in the royal coach – with a small detachment of the Commanderie as escort. I shall follow with the rest of my Guerriors when you have made the necessary overtures to the people of Sulien.’
Ilsevir pulled on his riding gloves; elegant gauntlets of the finest pearlgrey leather.
To Sulien, then.’
Girim raised his arm and pointed towards the west. His eyes blazed in the sun’s fire.
‘To the ultimate truth of the Poet-Prophet.’
‘The Po
et-Prophet!’ thundered back the assembled Guerriors of the Commanderie.
Amaru Khassian scoured the qaffë houses and taverns of Sulien to round up his musicians: Valentan, Azare, Astrel and Philamon.
Astrel he found busking in a shady colonnade. Valentan and Azare were entertaining fellow customers in a qaffë house with bawdy Allegondan catches. Philamon had to be dragged out of the taproom of the Moon and Sickle inn, rather the worse for Sulien cider.
By the time they reached the Temple forecourt, it was thronged with people, queuing to enter the Undercity. Widespread talk of miracles had excited the curiosity of Sulien’s citizens, all eager to see the drowned girl who had been brought back from the dead.
‘Why are we doing this?’ Valentan whispered to Khassian. ‘We’re Allegondans.’
‘Haven’t they got their own Temple choir?’ grumbled Azare. ‘I feel so… out out of place.’
‘They need us,’ Khassian said. ‘They need our expertise. Our aural skills. Our voices.’
‘Can’t we give ‘em one of your choruses, Amar?’
‘No.’ Khassian smiled at Azare. ‘Maybe another day.’
They passed through the echoing temple and made their way down into the Undercity, which was illuminated by the flames of many lotos candles.
Khassian caught sight of Orial, standing waiting, frail as a flickering lotos flame in the darkness.
‘You’ve come.’ She reached out her hands to them in greeting. ‘Thank you.’
She led the musicians to the Hall of Whispering Reeds where Jolaine Tradescar and Dr Philemot were still at work, carefully brushing back the dirt of centuries to expose the rest of the mosaic floor.
Their labours had revealed new details. The carven figure of a woman could faintly be discerned on the central stone disc, a priestess with hands cupped in front of her. And the delicate tesserae of the mosaic showed a spiralling drift of winged creatures travelling from the outer rim of the mosaic towards the central figure.
The Priestess stood silently observing their work. When Khassian and Orial drew near, she looked at Orial from beneath her veils.
‘A flight of dragonflies,’ she said.
Khassian thought he glimpsed them exchange a secret smile.
‘Are you ready, Jolaine?’ Orial called softly.
‘Just one thing more.’
Jolaine Tradescar leaned over the carved figure and pressed one half of an enamel disc into her cupped hands. Philemot produced the other half and slotted it into place so that the two halves became one whole: a perfect lotos.
A deep vibration shuddered through the Hall: the floor trembled beneath their feet.
‘Earthquake!’ someone shouted in panic.
‘Earthquake be damned!’ Jolaine Tradescar shouted back. ‘This is Lifhendil engineering. It’s a mechanism.’
Khassian glanced anxiously at Orial. Suppose her miraculous resurrection was but a temporary reprieve – suppose, like the dragonflies, she would be reborn for a brief while to fulfil her task, and then die?
The Priestess raised her hands for silence.
Orial began to sing in her quiet, pure treble and as the musicians matched their voices to hers, a hush fell amongst the murmuring onlookers who were gathering outside the candlelit hall.
Orial’s voice faded. She was swaying on her feet.
Jerame sprang forwards, catching her as she fell.
‘This must stop,’ he cried. ‘She’s too weak. She can’t sustain it. The strain on her heart –’
‘No, Papa.’ Orial struggled up again, ‘It must work. It will work.’
‘The circle,’ Jolaine Tradescar called. ‘Make a circle, Orial. Remember the wall-painting?’
Orial slowly, unsteadily moved forward, beckoning the musicians to join her.
‘A circle!’ Khassian struck his forehead with his hand, ‘It doesn’t work as a chant. It’s a round. I can hear it. I can hear how it fits together. Watch me – I’ll bring you in.’
He peered tensely at the other musicians. Then he took in a breath and began to sing. The ancient, wordless chant echoed in the darkness, each note husky but true. He caught Valentan’s eye and at his signal, Valentan joined the round. The two voices wound around each other, Valentan’s ringing tenor against Khassian’s baritone. And now the Priests had begun to understand the musical sense of it – they added their voices. Khassian nodded to Azare and he took counter-tenor, adding a third part to the round.
Orial was watching Amaru, her whole body taut, waiting to enter with the treble.
Khassian brought her in with a movement of the hand and her voice became a filament of sound snaking its way through the others, thin, high and pure.
Each part of the round wove into the complex spiral, a growing web of music that spun upwards until the whole hall vibrated.
The complexity of the polyphony generated from the single line of chant melody astounded Khassian. Its exquisite dissonances and resolutions made him want to weep – yet he knew he must keep singing, he must not lose the thread or the whole structure would unravel.
The floor beneath their feet had begun to vibrate in sympathy with the pulsations of the music.
And suddenly Khassian sensed that their voices had been joined by…
Others.
Now he could hear the rustling of many voices, intricate as the tremble of breeze-rippled windchimes, the buzzing of silver-winged bees.
A softspun light seemed to shimmer in the gloom; Khassian narrowed his eyes.
Orial was surrounded.
A phosphorescent glimmer lit the darkness of the Undercity with the eldritch light of marsh-fire.
Slowly the human singers fell silent, awed.
A wreathing circle of translucent, pulsing lights filled the chamber. From time to time a firebright thread of sound would coruscate outwards from the spinning circle. Dizzied, Khassian blinked.
They had come: a host of Eä-Endil, the Winged Ones.
It seemed the vibrations of light and sound mingled until Khassian could no longer distinguish one from the other; his senses were confused; he was hearing the colours, tasting the music. Green notes, acid-sharp, pierced his brain. Then a long, low, sustained pitch, rich as a gilded shaft of autumn sunlight. Now grey, crystalline drops of sound, cold as a spatter of winter rain…
Stones began to shift, ancient mechanisms, older than recorded time, creaking and groaning as the circular plinth on the floor on which Orial stood, slowly swung around. High above, a crack opened in the roof as daylight pierced the darkness, a shaft lighting up the gaping hole.
Steam rose hissing from the gulf below, and with it a spray of hot spring waters.
‘The springs! The springs!’ cried the Priestess.
The Priests fell to their knees. Others followed.
But Khassian still stood, staring transfixed at Orial.
Her pale face was suffused with an iridescent spectrum of light: translucent violet, rose, gold, glimmered in her hair, sapphire and emerald radiated from her eyes.
Khassian had seen the statues of Elesstar in the Temple. This was nothing like those blandly smiling figures of painted plaster. A river-spirit had risen from the reeds, a vernal goddess, ancient yet eternally young. She was the green sap pulsing, the wild fluting of the birds at dawn.
Slowly she raised her arms and a host of flying shadows appeared, clustering in the darkness.
Dragonflies… Huge dragonflies, as long as a man’s hand. Green as bottle glass, they darted around Orial’s head.
Clothed in living jewels, she stood motionless, her arms upraised.
Dragonflies swarmed over her bare breasts and arms, crowned her temples. Now her eyes reflected the colours of sky and water, the intense blue and green of her living adornments.
Khassian’s heart seemed to slow, to still. Time stopped.
And then the rainbow shimmer began gradually to fade from Orial’s eyes, her skin, her hair.
The spinning, ever-shifting cloud of sound was diminishin
g, dwindling to a distant murmur. He did not want it to stop, he wanted it to go on forever, he wanted to be a part of it –
One of the dragonflies lifted off her shoulders. The daylight caught starglints of green and sapphire in its beating wings. Caught on an updraft, it began to drift upwards towards the light. Another followed, then another and another until the air was fanned with the tremulous beat of gauze wings.
Jewelled mosaics ebbed and flowed before Khassian’s eyes in a dazzling kaleidoscope.
The swirling wings eddied, formed an ascending vortex, lifting upwards, upwards towards the sky.
Each darting insect trailed a line of melody, creating a glittering contrapuntal texture of interweaving translucence.
The crowd about him gasped, swaying in rhythm with the eddying flight.
‘There! There they go!’ cried children’s voices, shrill with excitement. There was a surge of movement amongst the watchers as they strained upwards – and the host of dragonflies rose, borne on the billowing steam, floating up, up into the pale sky beyond.
One last thread of light still encircled Orial, a thread of molten gold, warm as sunlight.
Touch of a gentle hand in the dark, a voice singing softly, stilling a child’s night fears, laughter trickling back on a summer breeze…
‘Mama?’ she whispered, raising her hands. Golden light trickled through her fingers – and a gilded dragonfly followed the others up into the sky. Orial blinked, blinded by the dazzling light of the sun – and when her sight cleared, all the dragonflies were gone.
CHAPTER 28
The Hall of Whispering Reeds echoed to the hiss of hot springs. All around Orial people were laughing and hugging each other. Children crept forward to plunge their hands into the fizzing steam and ran away again, squealing with delight.
Orial’s mind still glittered with the final flight of dragonflies… she felt light, buoyant, floating on air…
The real world, the everyday world, began to intrude on her consciousness. The gilded vision of the otherworld began to recede, to fade…
