Moths to a Flame

by Sarah Ash

  ‘You know how sensitive they are to fire, zhan Ymarys. Perhaps you would prefer to spare the wretched creature any more suffering—’

  He made a sudden thrust towards Jhofiel with his torch. Jhofiel let out a shrill, keening cry. Ymarys flinched as the cry pierced him, a jagged silverblade of fear, the unearthly voice strident in its distress.

  ‘Let him go. Put me to the question if you must – but let him go, he is innocent.’

  ‘Where is Laili Dhar, Ymarys? That’s all we want to know. Such a simple answer. She need never know who betrayed her. It could have been anyone – even the Arkhan himself.’

  The light – the light—

  Jhofiel was struggling to escape, struggling as the flames burned brighter. The harsh glare of the torchflares was reflected in his huge, dark eyes.

  T can’t hold him back, Ymarys,’ Rho Jhan said softly. ‘He just can’t resist the flames.’

  ‘Don’t look, Jhofiel!’ Ymarys implored. ‘Hide your eyes!’

  So bright … It calls to me …

  ‘Jhofiel,’ Ophar echoed, still so softly, so seductively, ‘come to the fire, Jhofiel …’

  ‘If I tell you,’ Ymarys heard himself saying, ‘you’ll let him go?’

  All the while that the torchflames scarred his vision, he was calculating the odds – even if he told them what they wanted to know, he could still get a message through to warn Lai.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Ophar said. ‘Of course we’ll let him go.’

  ‘Then – she is at the house by the sea – in Langoel.’ Each word burned Ymarys’s mouth like caustic soda. ‘Well? You’ve got what you wanted. Let him go!’

  ‘Rho Jhan.’ Ophar nodded to the Enhirran.

  Rho Jhan turned to Ymarys, smiling.

  ‘As you wish.’

  The hierophants turned their torches towards Jhofiel.

  Ymarys scrambled up, frantically tearing at the hierophants’ cloaks, their coarse robes, only to be knocked down again, trampled underfoot.

  He heard their triumphant shout as the flames caught.

  And Jhofiel’s cry. He heard his cry. Ecstatic as the bright ring of flames engulfed him – then wordless, mindless agony as his silkspun hair became a tracery of fire, as the fire shot heavenwards in an explosion of starsparks and the frail creature that had been made of moonshine burned like a moth in a candleflame – until something charred, blackened, dropped lifeless to the ground.

  CHAPTER 20

  Cariel came knocking on the door of Lai’s room before dawn.

  ‘Get up, Lai Dhar! Get up at once!’

  Lai blearily flung on his clothes and went stumbling across the murky yard after Cariel’s bobbing lantern. As he climbed the stair, he heard a mewling cry coming from Laili’s room.

  Laili still sat in the birth chair, her freckled face white with exhaustion. But as Lai came in, she smiled at him, such a smile of exultation that it made his heart melt. Wrapped in white linen, tucked in to her breast, lay a little, snuffling thing, its head covered with a down of soft copper.

  ‘Is it—’ Lai came closer and peered down at Laili’s baby. Eyes of a startling blue looked back at him.

  ‘A boy,’ she said, holding the babe close in the crook of her arm.

  ‘Born several weeks too soon,’ Cariel said. ‘Poor little scrap of a mite.’

  ‘He’s not a scrap. He’s perfect,’ Laili crooned.

  Lai took Cariel to one side, out of Laili’s hearing.

  ‘Is he going to be all right? And Laili? Why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘She wouldn’t let me call you. Said she had to do it on her own. And it’s too early to tell with the little one. He’s small, but he’s strong. A fighter.’

  ‘Lai?’ Laili called. He could hear the weariness in her voice now. He went back to her side. ‘Isn’t he beautiful?’ she said.

  Lai nodded.

  ‘What will you call him?’ He put out a finger, stroked the baby’s soft cheek. The baby pursed up its mouth as the finger touched the side of his lips, ready to suck.

  For a moment, Lai felt as if from a great distance, Clodolë’s pain. This was what she had been denied. The simple pleasure of holding her own live, undamaged child in her arms.

  ‘An Aelahim name?’ She ruffled the coppery down on the baby’s shell-pink head. ‘Look at him. He’s an Arkendym. His name is Dion. Dion-Dhar …’

  ‘That’s enough talking for now,’ said Cariel officiously. ‘She needs rest. She’s been up all night.’

  ‘When did the labour start?’ Lai asked Laili.

  ‘On the way back from the seashore, if you must know. What a narrow escape you had!’

  ‘Look at this gluttonous baby. So full of milk he’s fallen asleep.’ Laili lifted the heavy drooping head from her breast; the baby gave a little grunting snore but did not wake. ‘Bed for you, my lord.’ She settled him down in the crib on his side, tucking the soft shawl around him. ‘However did mother manage with the feeding of two of us?’

  Lai watched her. Echoes of their mother in the way she moved, the way her hair slipped from the loose knot at the nape of her neck as she bent over the crib, the way she brushed it back with one hand. But the sigh she gave as she straightened up again … The sigh betrayed her.

  ‘I’ve decided,’ he said. ‘I’m going to Phaeros tomorrow.’

  ‘Phaeros!’ She gave a little start. ‘Suppose you’re recognised?’

  ‘We can’t stay here for ever. We have to know what has happened.’

  She clasped her arms around herself as though she were cold.

  ‘And we have to know when the next ship leaves Ar-Khendye for the islands.’

  Her eyes met his, pleading; he saw how wan she had become, how worry and sleepless nights had eroded her stamina.

  ‘Not yet. Just wait a little longer.’

  ‘Winter’s coming on. How long can we wait?’

  She went to the window, gazing out across the darkening sea.

  ‘What do you think has happened to him, Lai?’

  ‘Pherindyn spoke of riots in the city. If it were safe for you to return, Melmeth would have sent word.’

  She swung around.

  ‘But to have sent no word at all!’

  He could find no answers to comfort her. Sooner or later he would have to tell her the news even though he did not understand what it meant: Clodolë had returned to Perysse.

  ‘Kneel before the Arkhys!’

  Blinds shaded the Memizhon audience chamber so that at first Azhrel could not see clearly in the dim light.

  Strong hands pressed on his shoulders. Irritably he shrugged them off and, with as much dignity as he could muster, went down on one knee on the polished marble floor. Looking up, he saw that Clodolë sat in Melmeth’s place, a pale shimmer of heavy silks and veils draped across the throne of Memizhon.

  She raised one languid hand to dismiss the tarkhastars.

  ‘What are you doing at Myn-Dhiel, Azhrel? No one sent for you. Haven’t you patients enough to attend to in the city?’

  ‘I’ve come to attend on the Arkhan.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘As his personal physician, I beg to disagree. I was treating him for a serious disorder of the eyes.’

  ‘You heard what happened in the arena?’

  ‘I heard all kinds of fantastic stories. A shaft of light from the heavens struck the Arkhan blind.’

  ‘The stories are fanciful.’

  Azhrel’s knee began to ache. He made to get up.

  ‘Who gave you permission to stand in my presence?’ Clodolë cried. ‘Stay where you are until I have finished!’

  Azhrel shrugged. Better to humour her; only that way might he learn anything about Melmeth.

  ‘So you admit that you were treating the Arkhan for a serious eye disorder.’

  Azhrel nodded, wondering where this was leading.

  ‘Could it be that your physic was responsible for his affliction?’

  The accusation astonished Azhrel. />
  ‘So he is blind.’

  ‘You’ve made mistakes in the past. You said I could never bear Melmeth a healthy child. You will soon be proved wrong again.’

  Azhrel was taken aback. Was she pregnant? The silks she was wearing gave no hint of her condition, but they were so loosely cut that her figure was concealed.

  Suppose he was wrong and she had conceived? What would become of Laili Dhar and her child?

  ‘If I could just be allowed to examine—’

  ‘We do not require your services any more. You are dismissed.’

  ‘I am the Arkhan’s physician,’ Azhrel said stubbornly. ‘Only he can dismiss me from his service.’

  She rose in a dry shiver of silks; dry as the rustle of mothwings.

  ‘If you value your freedom, you will leave Myn-Dhiel now before I order your arrest. On suspicion of causing the Arkhan’s blindness.’

  ‘Let me at least see my other patient, the boy Khaldar.’

  ‘Melmeth’s catamite?’ Her rich voice soured, a sharp, thin whine. And then she smiled. ‘I have no idea what has become of him.’

  Azhrel had been a servant to the House of Memizhon for too many years not to have leaned some of the concealed ways that honeycombed the ancient rock on which the citadel stood. He allowed himself to be escorted to the outer gate … then slipped back into Myn-Dhiel by means of an obscure garden door.

  Khaldar’s rooms were empty. From the thick film of dust coating every surface, he guessed that no one had entered for some time. The servitors he passed in the marbled corridors shook their heads when he mentioned Khaldar’s name.

  With every blank look his anxiety increased.

  Night was falling. He entered a garden courtyard, wondering whether to abandon his search.

  The moon silvered the Harkentower with a shimmering halo. Aware of a sudden tremble of movement, he stopped, gazing up at the moon-crowned tower.

  They issued from one of the high barred windows in a starsilvered cloud, like soap bubbles blown from a pipe, their frail wings glistening in the moonlight.

  Moonmoths – newly hatched.

  Azhrel went clambering up the steep watchtower stairs two at a time. At the top lay a dim chamber, dusty moonlight shafting down from a high slit-window. And a scent wafted towards him, the sweetspice of boskh – yet here its sweetness was overlain with another sicklier stench.

  ‘No.’ Azhrel’s voice was soft with nausea as he backed away. ‘Oh no.’

  Moonlight blanched the discoloured skin of the corpse, bleaching the corruption dazzling, purified white. The swollen body lay on a filthy pallet, tight-bursting skin crawling with erupting sletheris. Pupae cases like withered leaves hung from the wasted limbs, from the threadbare blanket. Moonmoths clustered in a patch of moonlight, their fast-drying wings vibrating. Even as Azhrel stood there, some began to drift to the high window, to flutter through the bars, drawn to the moon’s pale disc.

  ‘Khaldar,’ Azhrel said. ‘So they left you here to die. Alone.’

  He took off his jacket and gently laid it over the eunuch boy’s putrefying body.

  ‘What a fool I’ve been. What a cursed fool. The answer was here beneath my eyes all the time.’

  The clues were all there – the chrysalises found in the middens, the infected ridges and skin eruptions in the plague victims. How could he have missed them? There must be two patterns of addiction. Most addicts ended like this: hosts to the voracious moth larvae. But those who ingested so much boskh that it provoked the Changing he had observed in Miu seemed untouched. ‘They do not prey on their own kind,’ he murmured.

  There was a certain ruthless efficiency about the parasitical process that as a scientist he was forced to admire. If only he had brought his journal—

  ‘In the tower!’

  The alarm had been raised. Tarkhastars came running up the stairs; turning, Azhrel saw drawn razhirs glinting in the moonlight. Too late for escape now.

  ‘Trespasser!’

  They caught hold of him by the arms and began to drag him down the stairs. When he tried to fight free, one struck him on the side of the head with his razhir hilt. The stairs crashed past in a dazzle of moonlight and nightblack.

  At the bottom, he attempted to pull himself to his feet.

  ‘You were ordered to leave, Azhrel.’

  ‘Warn – the Arkhan—’ His tongue would not work properly; he could taste blood. ‘P–parasites—’

  A kick caught him in the stomach; scarlet gashed the black as he went down, gasping. Blood dripped in front of his eyes. Voices swam in his head.

  ‘Throw him out.’

  They hauled him, feet dragging over the ground, until he heard a door pulled open and found himself tumbling down a steep bank, over and over until a gravel path stopped his fall.

  He thought he could still hear their laughter, callous and mocking, before a black rising tide swept consciousness away.

  Ymarys could not remember how long he had lain in Jhofiel’s empty room. Sometimes he heard voices in the street far below.

  Leave me be.

  Nothing mattered now. He had lost Jhofiel, beautiful, ethereal Jhofiel, destroyed by the flames. And he had betrayed Lai.

  Maybe there was still time to warn Lai – but that would mean admitting his guilt. And how would Lai ever understand that he had betrayed his sister to try to save a freak, a monstrosity?

  The attic room was dark. Only the outline of the arched window was limned in glistening silver.

  Moonrise.

  The coverlet was so soft against his naked skin, soft as the finest velvet …

  As his eyes became accustomed to the moondusted darkness, he looked down at his body—

  He leapt up with a cry, trying to brush the moths off his chest, his belly, where they clustered, clinging on until he struck them to the floor.

  Moonmoths flapped dizzily about him, wings ragged from his assault, powdering the air with the sweet spicedust from their wings.

  Gradually the frenzied flailing subsided. His spent body slackened, lay still.

  They drifted down, settling on his skin, soft as the first fall of snow.

  There were no more fluting calls, no cloud of glittering dust; they covered his body from head to naked feet, squirming, scrabbling – stinging—

  ‘Ai!’ Tiny needlepricks of fire, hot as wasp-stings, jabbing into his tender flesh.

  Darkwoods … Drifting through the black web of thorn branches … The hooked thorns tear at his flesh …

  A gust of breeze trembled through the chamber; moonmoths eddied, swirled, a turbulence of windblown petals. When the breeze died down, only a few still clung tenaciously to his arm. The others began to drop to the floor, blighted orchard blossom, their white wings fading, decaying, disintegrating …

  Rising slowly on the nightbreeze … Floating over dark waters … Catching an echo of a voice, a whisper, a memory …

  ‘Jhofiel?’

  All about him lay drifts of dead moths, their papery wings crumbling in the moonlight.

  A terrible, debilitating lassitude was spreading through his body, he could hardly raise his head. Moonlight silvered the floor, silvered the dead moths littering the chamber …

  ‘Jhofiel …?’

  No answer. Only the faint rushing pulse of blood in his own ears.

  A crisp breeze arose off the sea, rattling the spiny sea-holly as Lai approached Phaeros along the cliff path.

  It was quiet. Too quiet, Lai reckoned. There had been such a bustle of activity in the port when they sailed through weeks ago. Now he could see no movement of masts or sails – nothing stirred on the water.

  He caught the sound of voices, raised voices, far below. He edged forwards to the cliff’s edge until, lying on his stomach amidst the coarse marram grass, he could see the port walls and the cliff gate.

  ‘What do you mean, the port’s closed? For how long? By whose authority?’

  ‘Can’t you read, old man? By order of Jhafir, Haute Zhudiciar.’<
br />
  Lai edged a little closer; there were tarkhastars in the gateway, three or four, their crimson jackets bright blots against the chalkwhite stone like hedgerow poppies.

  ‘But I’m here to pick up my cargo. I’m a merchant, I’m expecting qaffë beans from Tai-Goa, vanilla pods—’

  ‘I told you, the port is closed. No one is allowed in until the Haute Zhudiciar revokes the edict.’

  ‘And when might that be, pray? When my beans have rotted and the pods have been eaten by weevils?’ The irate merchant had dismounted from his horse and was waving his fists in impotent rage. Behind him a servitor idled, picking at his thumbnail.

  The gate was already shut and barred.

  Laili stared out over the green waves lapping at the walls of the house; high fall tide, the turn of the year towards the dark side.

  ‘What is the meaning of this intrusion? You have no right—’

  Laili heard voices in the courtyard, the protests of the appellants.

  ‘Take me to the girl. She is a runaway slave. You have been harbouring a criminal!’

  The fast tread of booted feet was coming closer, closer. She snatched Dion from his cradle and ran towards the door—

  The door burst open and Rho Jhan strode in.

  ‘Laili Dhar? You are accused of heinous crimes against the Arkhan and the people of Perysse.’

  ‘Crimes?’ She tried to steady her voice. ‘I have committed no crimes.

  ‘I bear a warrant for your arrest.’

  Dion began to whimper at her breast.

  ‘You are to be transported back to the city to stand trial.’

  Cariel elbowed her way through the tarkhastars clustered outside the door and planted herself in front of Rho Jhan.

  ‘She’s just had a baby. Can’t you see? She’s in no condition to travel.’

  He clicked his fingers and two tarkhastars came in, seized Cariel and flung her out of the room.

  ‘No!’ cried Laili, starting across the room towards her. ‘Cariel! Cariel!’

  Rho Jhan gripped hold of her by the arm and held his knife to Dion’s throat.

  ‘Come quietly – or I kill the child.’

  Lai sat down on a tussock of reeds and tugged off his boots. His feet ached. It had been a fruitless journey to Phaeros; he had learned nothing but that the Haute Zhudiciar had stopped all river traffic in and out of Perysse until the plague was under control. High overhead, curlews wheeled above the salt marshes. So human, their plaintive calls …