by James Duvall
Blaze closed his violet eyes and lowered his head in solemn reverence of some unspoken occurrence lost on Sapphire. When he looked up at her, his eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
“We were named before falfarren was spoken,” he said, recovering his voice after a few words. “I am called Blaze. Today, you stand before a council of nightborne.”
“Then, this is Alsimor?” Sapphire asked.
“Yes,” Blaze said with a deep nod. “All around you lies the ancient city of which all people tell tales. You stand upon the Court of Miracles, so named for Alshim the White once stood here as high king and judge.”
“I am to be judged?” Sapphire asked, feeling her wings starting to rise off of her back. She would run again, if it came to it.
Blaze shook his head. “No, but you will answer our questions.”
Sapphire felt her jaw tighten. “Ask them then.”
“What we need to know,” Blaze said, “is what madness would drive a melodian to follow a nightborne into the sacred city.”
“I don't know,” Sapphire said, flippantly. “Ask Rain, he's been here longer than I.”
“I am asking you,” Blaze said, directly. Sapphire assessed him and found that even confronted this way he lacked the severity of his sword-bearing kin.
“Why do you have melodians locked away in the sacred city?” Sapphire demanded. “When I look over these gardens I see only darkness. Do you know how many of us would come here? Do you know how many of us have died looking for this place?”
Sapphire took a ragged breath. Do you know my brother died looking for this place?
She knew they did not. They would not have heard of Torch Nightsong or what he had done in Cahen, how he had disappeared on his way to the black shard called Havek, or how much the call of Alsimor had meant to him, to all of them. This was a place of dreams to a young luminarian's heart, an unfulfilled promise of a better life. Light, song, and splendor. That's what it was supposed to be, but it was hollow, empty, with the last echoes of fading legends holed up in its ruins, hiding from the cold and dark world just like everyone else.
“You're supposed to be our heroes! You're supposed to be our heroes and you're hiding! You're... you're just like the rest of us, but you could be more! You could fill this city with lights again!”
Blaze waited until Sapphire's tirade ended in bitter tears.
“I am not here to argue philosophy with you, Sapphire,” he said once she had recovered enough of her composure to listen. She did not lift her head, feeling too much anger burning behind her eyes. Instead she hanged her head, the warp singer's visage filtered through her mane. Fallen teardrops wet small circles on the stone between her paws.
“Alsimor is not blind to the hardships our kind faces. This is why Tempest went to Merindi and dealt with the one you call 'the Harvester.'”
Tempest nodded gravely, her lantern shining brightly at her feet.
“If you are not going to bring the luminarians back into Alsimor, what are you doing here?” Sapphire demanded.
Blaze stepped out in front of the others, his head held high as he approached. This warp singer was taller than any male Sapphire had ever seen. Dawn was larger than her, but no dragon had ever made her feel quite so genuinely small by comparison. Blaze was lean, strong, and solid as a rock. Sapphire felt her confidence falter, strain, and shatter as the warp singer loomed over her, fear brushing her heart with its frigid claws. A tremble raced along her spine.
This close Sapphire could see how badly he'd been injured. Blood stained his fur in thick, matted clumps. Bloodied bandages oozing with medicinal salve covered the worst of the wounds. Illuminated from within, his violet eyes cut through the darkness, echoing her memory of the blind dragon's enchanted sight meeting her eyes through the White Tower's mist.
“We are the Soldiers of the Last Watch,” Blaze said, his voice taking an edge hard enough to crack a boulder. “We have been here, fighting, since the beginning and we shall be here unto the end. Does that satisfy you, Sapphire?”
Feeling she lacked the temerity to force out words, Sapphire nodded ever so slightly, her eyes wide and fixed on him.
“What I need to know from you is why you came to Alsimor. Why were you following a nightborne?”
There was silence again. Sapphire looked at each of them, trying to work out their motivations. “I followed her because... I... I needed a feather. Some proof she existed. My mate is very ill... I came to this island to find...” No, that wasn't right. They were not on the island anymore.
“I went to Merindi to find books from the days of Forrander. Days before the Shattering. I needed a remedy for Dawn's illness. I needed a feather for his happiness.”
This brought a little smile to Tempest's face. The one Sapphire knew only as Fire Jar groaned and turned her head skyward, lifting a paw to cover her eyes.
Blaze had the look of a drake that had just found the entire world had been turned upside down while he was napping. “A feather... for his happiness...” he repeated numbly.
“Stories of what the warp singers... the nightborne... have done really inspire him. I... I told him you weren't real so many times but he holds to his faith in you. I thought if I could get one of Tempest's feathers, I could show him and it might help...”
“Tell me you were not in the Harvester's bedchamber looking for warp singer feathers,” Blaze said, sounding right on the verge of pleading.
Sapphire blinked in astonishment. “Why would I be looking for a mythical feather in a place like that?” she demanded. “Why would I be looking for a mythical feather anywhere. Do I seem thick-headed to you?”
“You did follow a nightborne into Alsimor,” Fire Jar pointed out. Sapphire glared daggers at her.
“We need your help,” the one called Jasper said, looking down at her through a pair of spectacles. “Have you heard of the Mistwood Vault?”
Sapphire shook her head. “I am not a mistweaver...”
“You are an elementalist, yes?” he asked, adjusting his spectacles.
“Jasper, you saw her fighting Brazen,” Fire Jar prompted him gently.
“Hmm?” Jasper asked, looking at her for a moment in mute incomprehension. “Oh! Yes, yes, of course. The uhm... comets... very pretty. Fine work.”
Sapphire whined. “I almost died...” She was still unsure of how she hadn't. A fall from that height...
Jasper frowned at her. “You did? I am very sorry to hear that...”
“There is a man on the island,” Tempest said. “Donovan Skalde. He is seeking to open the vault.”
“I've met him... You don't need my help though, you can deal with him like you dealt with the Harvester.”
Tempest shook her head. “He is guarded by a dusk tracer, Aelengy. These are both powerful entities of darkness that we cannot risk allowing to escape with knowledge of our existence. We have been seeking an elegant method of assassination for several weeks now that the first fragment of the vault key has been unearthed.”
Sapphire shook her head. “I cannot fight the gryphon,” she said, offering little room for debate on that matter. Such an idea was suicide by tooth and claw.
“You can open the vault,” Jasper said, helpfully. “That is why we require your assistance. It must be done in daylight. We want you to open the vault before Skalde. There are things inside that we must not allow him to have. Ehm, one moment...”
Jasper searched through the satchel on his left side, frowning and muttering to himself. He switched to the two on the right, then lifted a wing and checked beneath it along his side, counting the satchels.
“The keystone?” Fire Jar asked.
“Yes, please, I must've left it in the library...” Jasper answered, frustration in his tone. When the dragoness did not immediately fly away, he frowned. “Oh, yes, my desk. It should be on my desk..”
Fire Jar flew off to retrieve it. Tempest gave the old dragon a gentle pat on the back.
“The keystone,” Jasper continued, “w
ill let you into the vault. You will need... ehm... the shards of the key. They are arlorian focuses. They tell me you have one...”
Sapphire summoned the focus, letting it turn slowly through the air as it found a comfortable place near her right shoulder. Just as quickly it disappeared in a misty haze.
“Ah, excellent, you're halfway there then.”
Fire Jar returned shortly after, carrying a wooden disk that had been painted white and carved with ornate patterns of clinging ivy. The front was studded with crystals that glowed faintly with power. Just then there were footsteps, hurried and fleeting. Jasper took it from her and affixed the polished white stone to the center.
From somewhere in the darkness a new voice sounded. “Brazen is coming!” he hissed.
“Jade...?” Blaze asked.
The dark-eyed warp singer unclasped her jar of blue fire and held it aloft. It brightened while the rest of the world dimmed. When Jade's spell had finished, the braziers were filled with little more than smoldering embers and the candles all around had gone out.
“Come with me...” Blaze said, “it is best he not find you here.”
Back in her cell, Sapphire had time to think, mostly about how to get back out of her cell.
“What did they tell you?” Rain asked.
“They want me to go back to the island and get something for them,” Sapphire said, pacing her cell. She stopped in front of her water bowl. Her reflection looked back at her with tired eyes, dark with fatigue. She dipped the tip of her claw into the water and froze it solid. The surface was milky, but she could still see her face reflected back.
“If I do it, I guess they will owe me a favor. Maybe they will let us both go. I think that's how it works. They put us side-by-side for a while and hope we establish a bond, then they ask me to do this and hold you hostage until I come back.”
Sapphire threaded the disk of ice between the bars and held it out as far away from her as she could. Turning it, she could just barely get a view into the next cell over.
“They didn't tell you what you would get in return?” Rain's reflection asked, his face painted with confusion. He was looking up at the vent between the cells and didn't seem to notice Sapphire's icy mirror. “Did you not ask?”
He was large, as Sapphire had estimated. Bands of blue marked his wings. Slowly she tilted the frozen mirror, trying to estimate how long he must be from nose to tail.
“There was no time,” she commented idly, her attention on her mirror. She felt ice reach up and grip her heart as she reached his tail tip and found cruel crescent blades.
Sapphire dropped the pan, cracking the ice. Little bits of it skittered across the stone floor. She didn't need it anymore. The image of Rain's crescent bladed tail was fixed firmly in her mind. He was one of them.
Chapter 31
The Lighthouse
Road to Nothnor, Isla Merindi, Pendric Shard
Last night there were heated debates over whether or not the food should last and whether or not anyone from the outside might be trying to breach the walls yet. Early in the morning hours someone came to the hospital tents and set fire to them. Seven wounded perished in the fire.
From the Journal of Isaac Faralon
It had been three days since the Storm Riot had fallen behind the horizon and there had been no sign yet of the pirate crew coming for their captain. Kanes marked the date in his log and recorded the prisoner's condition. Timothy Binks had woken that morning for the first time since they'd hauled him out of the Storm Riot in irons.
“Good evening, Aebyn,” Kanes said, hearing someone push aside his tent flaps.
“Good evening, detective,” the gryphon answered politely. He had done the same each night. Kanes looked over at him to confirm his expectations. Aebyn did not disappoint. As before he took a position at the back of the tent, his back to Kanes so that he could watch Binks through the thin gap of daylight coming in through the tent flaps.
“I didn't expect you tonight, since he's awake and all.”
“What must I say to convince you?” Aebyn asked.
Kanes sat down beside him, pulling up a chair. “You're a young thing, aren't you,” he said.
Aebyn nodded. “Yes?”
Kanes sighed. This wasn't his area of expertise. Maybe the captain, he had kids. “It's not about convincing me. I'm not a judge. Fact is there's enough evidence to bring your friend there in for a fair trial. More than enough, I'm afraid.”
“But I told you he didn't do it!” Aebyn protested, briefly abandoning his vigil to look up at Kanes in frustration.
“Yeah, you did,” Kanes said. He reached for his bag and pulled out a bottle of strong Magashan whiskey. He poured a small glass of it for himself and briefly entertained whether he ought to pour one for the gryphon, but reasoned that since Aebyn wasn't, strictly speaking, an adult yet...
“This is not enough? My own word?”
Kanes shook his head. “I understand what you're trying to do and I respect that. I do. More people ought to stick by their own like that. Thing is, you're too close to it. Means you've got an emotional stake in Mr. Binks' well-being. Thing about that is, it gives you reason to...” Kanes shook the bottle of bourbon and watched the copper fluid spin while he searched for a delicate word.
“Lie?” Aebyn asked bitterly.
“Lighthounds are loyal. It's one of your best qualities,” Kanes said. He shrugged. “Thing is it compels you to protect him, even if he's wrong.”
“He is not!” Aebyn said, obstinately.
“Then the truth will come out,” Kanes offered halfheartedly. He filled his glass again and emptied it in turn. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his mouth, letting the taste of alcohol burn slowly on his tongue. These were the worst sort of cases. Everything pointed to three cogent facts. The first being that Timothy Binks had killed Samuel Raimes and the second being that Samuel Raimes was a rotten sod and probably had it coming. Binks had too many of Raimes' personal effects on him: Samuel's signet ring, his papers, and the very lighthound come to testify on his behalf.
The third fact was that Timothy Binks seemed to be a decent man in spite of his crimes. He had the loyalty of his crew, the love of his gryphon, and by all accounts he had done no disservice to the Bridger's Guild by claiming to be one of them to the people of Nothnor.
“Why haven't I found Jack Willoughby?” Kanes asked quietly. It nagged at him. Everything Binks had done up to that point had made sense.
“Skalde has him,” Aebyn hissed.
“Yes, you've said,” Kanes answered. The gryphon had delivered a truly fantastic story about Skalde's men being responsible for the murder of Christopher Trammel and finding the old pirate missing in the wake of the attack and a mistweaver that was not a mistweaver come to save them from Skalde's assassins. Binks had repeated the same story to him upon waking. Sadly it was not the most preposterous story he'd been told, but he expected more from a man like Binks.
Kanes finished off his drink and tucked the bottle and mug back out of sight in his pack. He stood and pushed the chair back from the door.
“Where are you going?” Aebyn asked when he started to leave.
“To do my job,” he grumbled back.
As Kanes approached Skalde's tent he found himself wondering what sort of man kept a dusk tracer as companion. Aelengy lay sprawled beside the tent. Occasionally he would lift his head to hiss at the man cleaning his bandages.
“They have to be cleaned or the wound will sour,” the man barked back, giving as readily as he got.
Aelengy hissed his distaste back and the man glowered at him, halting his work until the gryphon lay its head back down.
Kanes tipped his hat to the man and ducked into Skalde's tent unannounced. The dark-haired man looked up from the pages of the book he was reading and arched a brow at him.
“Detective?” he asked with obvious distaste.
“You know,” Kanes said. “I've thought about quitting and becoming a chef.
See when a fellow like me comes around, well, I'm here to wheedle into people's private affairs. So they look at me like that there what you did. Yeah, just like that,” he said, grinning.
“A chef though, there's a job where everyone's not pissed off to see you. Y'know? Like a mage, I imagine. Or maybe not. Are people pissed off when they see you coming, Mr. Skalde? They seem awfully afraid of you. Maybe it's that big bird you've got outside. Frightful thing isn't he?”
“What is the point of this, detective?” Skalde asked sharply. He sat old book down and laid the ribbon across the page to mark his place should the wind catch the pages.
Kanes shrugged. “Thing is I've got to take the prisoner back to Deshym, and when I get there I will have to take him down to Fletcher Street, and he's going to say he was trying to trade you that focus you found in his pocket for some old man. Then my boss is going to look at me and say 'Kanes, is that true?' and I'll say 'No, captain, it's not.' Only I can't say that if I don't know it to be so. So why does he think you've got his old man, Mr. Skalde?”
“It's a convenient lie for him. He is a desperate man, detective. Wanted for murder, according to you. Why should I worry myself with the wild accusations of criminals?”
Skalde had the Arlorian Focus laid out on the table with two others that were red and amber. Kanes whistled.
“Three Arlorian Focuses in the same place. That's worth more than the ship that brought me here.”
“It's worth a considerable amount more than that, detective,” Skalde said. He turned the pages of the old book until he found a diagram showing four focuses and a small disk they were meant to be placed in. Kanes recognized it as a keystone. Something usually built with much more common fare than these. “This is probably the most important magical event in this region since the Shattering. We may well open the Mistwood Vault with these.”
“If it's worth so much, why bring it up to the Storm Riot where a powerful mage like yourself was waiting? Furthermore, why come at all?”
“I am sure he was afraid of leaving it behind, lest it be stolen by a member of his unscrupulous crew while he was away. There is no honor among thieves, detective, I would think that would be most evident to someone of your profession... Now if Fletcher Street has taken enough of my time...?”