Moths to a Flame

by Sarah Ash

There was no one there.

  ‘If this is a trick—’ Or worse, a trap. He had not considered that possibility. A clever forgery to draw him here alone, unarmed—

  ‘Lai.’

  A girl stood in the open doorway, red hair drifting loose about her shoulders, her face hidden behind a fantastic winged moth-mask, white feathers and silvered sequins.

  ‘Are you – is it really—’ He couldn’t speak more. He wanted to run to her, to hug her to make sure she was real.

  ‘Oh, Lai—’ Laili reached out her hands towards him and the mask dropped to the ground. He flung his arms around her, feeling her clinging to him as if she would never let go.

  ‘Dhamzel.’ A voice from the shadows, low yet vibrant with menace. Laili froze, her arms locked tight about Lai’s neck.

  ‘Oh no, give us a little longer, it is so long since we …’ Tears on her voice, like rain on the damp breeze.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Lai asked urgently.

  ‘Oh yes, I’m all right. I am well fed, well treated … but …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I miss Ael Lahi so much. This terrible aching cold, these sunless days … I don’t want to end my days in a jewelled cage, my wings clipped, unable to fly.’

  ‘I’ll set you free!’ Lai said fiercely.

  To be free again – if only I—’ She shook her head. ‘But it’s impossible.’

  ‘Don’t cry, Laili, I can’t bear to see you cry. Listen to me. You must hold on a little longer. Trust me. There is a way.’ He tried to wipe the tears from her face with shaking fingers. There was no choice now.

  ‘Be careful, Lai. Myn-Dhiel is full of schemes, intrigues; don’t trust anyone—’

  ‘Dhamzel!’ There was no mistaking the urgency in the low voice. A woman stood in the doorway, half-shrouded in shadow, her features hidden behind a tufted mask of sable owl feathers. Behind her, Lai could just make out two others, mute harem eunuchs, their drawn blades glimmering in the darkness.

  ‘Lai …’ Laili raised her fingers to his cheeks, cupping his face in her hands, as though trying to imprint the shape, the memory of it on her fingers.

  ‘You must come now.’ The woman placed her hands on Laili’s shoulders, slowly drawing her away from Lai.

  ‘No!’ cried Lai. ‘Why now? We have hardly been together two minutes—’

  The two eunuchs in the shadow barred his way, jagged blades thrust towards his throat. Beyond them, he could just see Laili’s gown, pale as drifting moth wings. One moment she was there, the next she had vanished from his sight, lost in the tangled wilderness.

  ‘And don’t try to follow us.’

  Lai craned his head forwards, trying to penetrate the dark hood covering her hair, the sinister owl-mask. Who was she? The voice was muffled by the folds of the hood, yet Lai thought he caught the world-weary inflections of an older woman.

  ‘Follow us – and she will be lost to you forever.’

  CHAPTER 6

  Melmeth stood motionless as the priests of the flame robed him in scarlet and ochre. The cavernous shrine of Memizhon was bright with the dragon-breath of torches, their fire sparking glints of molten gold in the metallic veins that threaded through the iron-brown rock.

  So many times Melmeth had watched his father Sardion prepare to renew the Undying Flame, had stood dazzled by the lights, deafened by the clamour of gongs, watching the stern-faced stranger, clad in robes of flame, slowly ascend the steps and plunge his hand into the flickering tongue of fire – then withdraw his hand whole, unharmed, and show it to the assembled court.

  ‘One day,’ the stranger had whispered to him, ‘you will take my place …’ And the child Melmeth had shrunk away from him, fearing his harsh, unfamiliar voice … and fearing the searing heat of the flames most of all.

  Slowly Melmeth climbed the carven steps. The air vibrated to the booming of tarkenhorns, the metallic shimmer of gongs, the deep chanting of the priests.

  He raised his hand – and thrust it into the flame.

  Silence fell, soft as winter snow.

  He withdrew his hand and held it aloft for the assembled court to see. The flesh was whole, unblistered; the sacred fire had not harmed him. Then the priests burst into a frenetic paean of praise and Melmeth walked amongst his people, touching their heads with the fire-seared hand. All around him, his courtiers fell to their knees to kiss the hem of his trailing robes.

  The yearly spring ritual had begun, the ritual that would culminate in the blood rites in the arena on Mithiel’s Day, a sennight away.

  Over the heads of his court, Melmeth’s eyes met those of his consort, Clodolë. Knowing, bitter, ironic, her golden gaze openly challenged him to pass her by at his peril. The carven chair beside hers, the chair where the Arkhmyn, heir to the Seven Cantons, should sit, was conspicuously empty.

  ‘Aren’t you going to touch me, my lord?’ she asked, her glance sliding to the empty chair. ‘Miracles might yet be accomplished.’

  Even here she chose to humiliate him, in front of the whole court.

  ‘A show of unity between Arkhan and Arkhys would be auspicious for the coming rites,’ Ophar’s voice whispered in his ear.

  Melmeth hesitated a moment then, seeing the implacable glint in the High Priest’s eyes, offered Clodolë his hand to lead her from the shrine.

  ‘So how fares your young protégé?’ Her fingertips rested so lightly on his, they hardly touched.

  ‘Nothing seems to escape your attention, lady. I would have thought such matters were of little interest.’

  ‘Oh, everything interests me, Melmeth. I’m told he has red hair. Strange … this sudden obsession of yours with red hair.’

  Melmeth did not respond. He knew she was trying to bait him; they had pursued this conversation on too many previous occasions.

  ‘Who have you chosen as champion? Not Ymarys, surely.’

  ‘Why not Ymarys?’

  ‘Once they lose their nerve in the arena, they never regain it. Rho Jhan’s unbeaten – and he’s at the peak of his skills. If they’re matched at the rites, Ymarys will be lucky to crawl away with his life.’

  ‘Yes, I heard that you had taken an interest in Rho Jhan’s training.’

  She snatched her hand away.

  ‘If you’re going to lavish money and favours on your protégé, I shall do the same.’

  ‘Even when he fights for the rival Tarkhas? The Tarkhas Zhudiciar?’

  ‘Memizhon is your ancestral House, lord, not mine.’

  ‘If your alliance to my House is so displeasing to you, lady, I could so easily find ways of terminating the association.’

  She stared at him; suddenly he was aware that the bustle of movement about them was stilled and everyone was watching, straining to catch their every word.

  ‘Are you threatening me, Melmeth? Me?’

  Then she wheeled sharply away, her dhamzels fluttering after her like windblown butterflies. Melmeth rubbed his hand; the Undying Flame of Mithiel could not harm his unguent-smeared skin, but her nails had left a jagged scratch.

  He felt suddenly unendurably weary of his court and the empty splendours of the rites of Mithiel. The sacred robes weighed too heavily on his shoulders; he felt like a puppet, buckling under the weight of pomp and authority.

  ‘Hollow …’ he whispered. ‘Meaningless. A sham.’

  He lifted the heavy gilded godmask from his head and handed it to Khaldar who stood silently, faithfully by. His head ached where the cold metal had pressed into his skull.

  She would know how to soothe him, only she could smooth the ache from his head and the terrible gnawing emptiness from his soul.

  If only he could just slip away unnoticed and—

  ‘A word with you, Lord Arkhan.’ Ophar was at his side. ‘It has been brought to my attention that Arlan Azhrel has been at his infernal works again. Unnatural explosions. Sulphurous smoke. Heresy, my lord, heresy!’

  ‘There’s little danger, surely, in a few firecrackers to amuse the people?’ Me
lmeth said, trying to laugh aside the High Priest’s accusation.

  Ophar’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Dr Azhrel is a dangerous man. A few firecrackers today … but where will it lead tomorrow? What abominations is he devising in his laboratory? The gift of fire was a sacred trust, it is not to be abused or exploited.’

  ‘I fail to see how Azhrel’s hobby can be called heresy.’

  ‘Is it not written in the Book of Mithiel, “I charge you, firstborn of Memizhon, to keep my flame burning in the hearts of your people”?’

  ‘Yes …’ The ache in Melmeth’s skull had become more intense. He wished Ophar would leave him alone.

  ‘And is it not also written, “Seek not to exploit the mysteries of my Divine Flame. For the Firebringer will destroy those who wield the fire for their own gain”?’

  ‘Yes, yes—’

  ‘Don’t you understand, Lord Arkhan? The man is meddling in the sacred and the forbidden. He must be stopped.’

  ‘I find him to be a good man. A philanthropist. A man of science.’

  ‘Good? I believe our definitions of goodness must differ greatly, zhan.’

  ‘What,’ Melmeth said wearily, ‘are you asking me to do, Ophar?’

  ‘Close down his laboratory. For if he persists in his experiments, I will be forced to bring him before the Inquisition to be tried. And if his arguments do not stand up before the law of Mithiel then nothing you do, or say, my lord, will protect him.’

  * * * * *

  ‘Maistre Ymarys?’

  Marys – rys – ys … The echoes whispered to silence.

  The armoury was empty.

  And then Lai noticed that the little door at the far end of the armoury was wide open. He had never seen it open before and had supposed that it was of little or no significance: a storeroom or disused garderobe …

  A foul odour came wafting out, sulphurous as the hot springs yet tainted with a more familiar metallic tang.

  ‘Maistre!’

  And from deep below he heard Ymarys’s voice faintly answering.

  ‘Down here!’

  At the foot of the stair lay another chamber, its door half-ajar.

  ‘Come in …’

  The smell of sulphur grew stronger as Lai pushed open the door.

  The air was yellowed with smoke like clinging winterfog; an open grating high in the wall was the only ventilation and source of daylight.

  Ymarys beckoned him into the smoke-choked chamber.

  A long table was crowded with glass jars, funnels, pipes and alembics. A tall man in shirt sleeves, his face shielded by a leathern mask, was holding a glass flask over a flame. His long black hair was loosely tied back at the nape of the neck with a crimson ribbon. The powdered contents of the flask were slowly changing colour as the flame’s heat warmed them to life.

  As Lai drew closer, he was overwhelmed by a sudden certainty that he had encountered the stranger before.

  ‘Watch, Lai.’

  The powder suddenly glowed jewel-bright, sultry blue as the plumage of an exotic grove bird. The man carefully lifted the flask with metal tongs and placed it to cool on a tripod. Then he raised the mask to wipe the sweat from his eyes.

  That face – that hideously scarred face—

  ‘You. It was you,’ Lai whispered. ‘In the donjon. Afterwards I thought it was just a dream, a feverdream—’

  ‘You two have already met?’ Ymarys said. Lai hardly heard him.

  ‘I was delirious. You saved my life. And I never knew your name—’

  ‘Azhrel,’ the stranger said abstractedly. ‘Arlan Azhrel. I’m glad to see you’re fully recovered.’

  ‘Doctor Azhrel,’ corrected Ymarys. ‘Physician – and Artificiar to the Arkhan.’

  ‘It’s a closely guarded secret, the making of firedust, passed down from father to son. The hierophants call it the work of Ar-Zhoth. If they had their way …’ Arlan Azhrel began to wipe his hands and face clean on a linen cloth.

  ‘Firedust?’ Lai was still staring at the doctor, only half-hearing what he was saying.

  ‘For Mithiel’s Day. Bright coloured flares, loud bangs, all to excite the crowd.’ Dr Azhrel pointed to the dusty row of earthenware jars ranged along the shelf above the table labelled in faded lettering: ‘Orpiment’, ‘Iron Sand’, ‘Lazuli’, ‘Antimony’, ‘Calomel’ …

  ‘Metallic salts especially refined by Dr Azhrel himself – in his other guise as alchymyst. Whites, yellows, reds … even blues and greens … He’s an artist in fire.’

  Azhrel bowed, touched his forehead to acknowledge the compliment, leaving, Lai could not help but notice, a smear of soot.

  ‘And now to work!’ Ymarys clapped his hands together.

  Dispersing fumes from the firedust began to taint the armoury, drifting up from the cellar; Lai’s nose wrinkled at the foul smell, his stomach queased.

  ‘We practise in this smoke?’ Lai said.

  ‘Ha! Get used to it now. You heard what Azhrel said – the arena will be wreathed in firedust smoke on Mithiel’s Day. On a windless day you can find yourself searching for your opponent through thick fog.’

  Throughout the winter the barrel-vaulted roof of the armoury had echoed to the clash of blades as Lai and Ymarys worked alone. Now everywhere Lai looked there were tarkhastars ranged along the whitewashed walls of the armoury; even the Arkhan was there, attended by his silent body slave, dark Khaldar, to see Ymarys defend his title.

  ‘Put this on.’ Ymarys threw Lai a padded corslet. ‘Blood rites rules.’ There was a wild, wanton glint in his grey eyes that Lai had never seen before. ‘The first to draw blood is the winner.’

  Lai tried to concentrate his mind on tugging the corslet straps tight but his heart was pounding. To fight Ymarys was like fighting himself; every move he made would be anticipated.

  Orthandor called for quiet and, at a nod from the Arkhan, the contest began.

  They circled each other a while, Ymarys languid in his gait, a silvercat stalking his prey.

  Lai’s nerve broke the first. Blade whirling, he came at Ymarys, intending to tire him with a dazzling fanfaronade of strokes—

  Goddess, where was he? Lai blinked, bewildered.

  Ymarys’s blade came thrusting towards him; he just managed to deflect it, a finger’s breadth from his cheek.

  ‘A close call!’ Orthandor shouted.

  Lai retreated; all the while Ymarys was moving steadily, stealthily closer.

  Think of something. Think of something. Think—

  Ymarys’s wrist twitched, so fast Lai never noticed the moment his bright blade came rearing up, a flicking cobra-tongue stabbing straight for his eyes.

  And in that moment, Lai thrust. Felt the jolt of his blade grazing Ymarys’s flesh, Ymarys’s eyes staring accusingly into his own, cold as razhir steel.

  ‘Damn you to hell, Lai Dhar!’

  The razhir dropped to the floor as Ymarys’s hand flew to clutch at his face.

  ‘Well, Ymarys?’ Melmeth said in the silence.

  It was only then that Lai noticed the thin line of crimson trickling between the delicate white fingers, only then that he realised with a shock that he had drawn blood.

  A murmur of astonishment went rippling around the armoury as the tarkhastars realised that Ymarys, the champion, had been defeated.

  Ymarys gripped Lai’s hand and raised it high in the air.

  ‘My lord Arkhan – you have a new champion.’ His drawling voice hid the naked anger Lai had glimpsed a few moments before. ‘This is your Razhirrakh – Lai Dhar!’

  Next morning Ymarys failed to arrive for blade practice.

  Ymarys had never been late before.

  Lai performed a few solitary exercises, swinging his blade until the air sang.

  Where was Ymarys? Sulking, perhaps, resentful that his own pupil should have defeated him in front of the Tarkhas Memizhon clan? Or perhaps the blade-wound had run more deep than Lai had intended. Ymarys took such pride in his appearance; maybe he was refusin
g to emerge from his rooms until the unsightly scar had healed …

  ‘Lai Dhar?’

  A servitor clad in the azure livery of the Tarkhas Memizhon stood in the open doorway.

  ‘Follow me.’

  He led Lai across the courtyard and in at the great door of the Tarkhas House; a broad staircase of polished oak wound upwards from the panelled hall adorned with the tasselled standards and gilded trophies of past victories. Lai had never been permitted to penetrate so deep into the heart of the clan before.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Lai asked as they climbed the stair.

  ‘Maistre Ymarys has risen late this morning. He asks you to join him for a morning tisane.’

  ‘Asks you.’ The change of emphasis did not escape Lai’s notice. One well-timed blade-scratch – and his position had subtly altered.

  Ymarys’s rooms were on the first floor; the servitor opened the door and ushered Lai in.

  ‘Good morning to you, Lai,’ Ymarys, draped in a morning robe, was reclining on the couch, his hair loose about his shoulders.

  ‘Maistre Ymarys. I – I must apologise. I – I never intended—’

  ‘D’you mean this?’ Ymarys lifted the long locks of hair that curtained his face, revealing the cut, a thin crescent of angry red.

  Lai flinched.

  ‘A mere scratch. It’s healing already.’

  Prayer flags of saffron, cinnamon and scarlet hung on the limewashed walls next to a knotted flail of black rope, scourge of the soul as well as the body. Yet the couch on which Ymarys lay was a riot of striped, sequinned silk cushions: mulberried pink, violet, vanilla. The air was perfumed not with bitter incense but with the exotic scents of expensive body-oils. A crisis of identity: Ymarys the hedonist in conflict with Ymarys the ascetic. Lai caught Ymarys unconsciously stealing a critical glance at himself in the round bronze-framed mirror that hung above the bed.

  ‘The preparation of morning tisane is a ceremony of some ritual in my home canton, Langoel.’

  The servitor lit the oil to heat water and brought out a flask of exquisitely enamelled beaten metal in the shape of a curled firedrake which he placed on the ebony table at Ymarys’s bedside and then withdrew. The water began to bubble; Ymarys deftly poured it over the crushed herbs and spices in the flask and left it to steep. A thin curl of aromatic steam rose from the curved spout, the firedrake’s open maw.