by Darius Hinks
‘Soon,’ he whispered, to his brother’s frozen grimace. ‘Soon, we will be together.’
Finavar had retained enough sense to know that he could never take his own life but, after countless weeks without food, and untreated wounds all over his frail body, he knew that nature would soon take its course.
A sound rang out from the trees below and Finavar cursed. ‘Why won’t you leave us to die?’ He laid Jokleel’s mouldering corpse gently on the ground and crept to the cave mouth, scowling down through the treetops.
At first he could see nothing but shadows and the grey, rolling foothills of Drúne Fell; but then, after edging cautiously down the mountainside, he saw two small shapes snaking through the trees, watching him with tiny, button-bright eyes.
He cursed again, grabbed a stone and hurled it at them.
His aim was poor and the stone clattered harmlessly against a tree trunk, but the eyes vanished.
‘I have no need of guides,’ he tried to say, but his words became a gasp as he collapsed back against the rock, his pulse racing from the effort of throwing the stone. ‘Find a new master,’ he managed to say after a few seconds.
It took a few minutes for him to catch his breath; then he turned to climb back into the cave.
Another sound echoed across the rocks and he paused, peering down through the trees.
Finavar’s face paled as he saw a figure, sat beside a small brook. From this distance it was impossible to make the person out with any clarity, but when laughter rang out again, he realised it was a female voice. There was something familiar about the sound and he stared into the darkness, feeling a growing sense of dread.
As he watched, the figure shifted and there was a flash of light. It looked as though she were holding a mirror in her hands.
Finavar turned and looked anxiously at Jokleel’s remains, just visible within the cave mouth.
Then the laughter rang out a third time, sounding even more familiar, and he decided he would just climb a little way down the mountainside for a better look, then return to watch over his brother.
It was only as he climbed over the ledge and began to descend that Finavar realised how weak he was. His wasted arms could barely hold him as he reached for handholds and edged along ridges, and his legs trembled under his weight. The going was slow but he finally reached the forest floor without mishap, and crept through the trees towards the brook.
Someone was sitting by the edge of the water, clad in a ragged, hooded cloak and whispering furiously to herself. Every few moments she would touch her shoulder and laugh – a shrill, hiccupping sound that echoed through the darkness.
There was hardly any moonlight in the clearing but, every few minutes, she would turn an object in her hands and moonlight would flash across her face, revealing fine, imperious features and a knotted mass of silver hair. Her cloak was filthy and her eyes were sunken and wild, but her sneer of disdain was unmistakable.
Finavar gasped as he recognised the Lady of Locrimere. ‘Ordaana!’ he cried.
The noblewoman leapt to her feet, threw back her hood and held out the object in her hands.
Finavar saw that it was a long, silver knife. The hilt was clogged with dark lumps of soil, but the blade gleamed with an inner light, revealing a line of delicate sigils along its length.
‘Death’s-head,’ said Ordaana in a taut, brittle voice. She levelled the knife at Finavar. ‘I have been seen.’
Finavar cowered and looked over his shoulder at the slopes of Drúne Fell. He was so weak and confused that for moment he did not realise Ordaana was referring to him.
‘Who are you?’ she snapped, edging across the clearing with the knife still pointed at his face. ‘What do you want here?’ She glared at him as she approached, then looked back over her shoulder and called out again. ‘Death’s-head!’
Finavar held up his hands and stepped backwards. ‘I meant no harm.’ He turned to leave, then caught his foot on a root and collapsed to the ground.
Ordaana stared at him for a few seconds; then, as she saw his frail, naked body more closely, she laughed. ‘By the gods, I think you’re even more pathetic than I am. What are you?’
‘I’m Finavar.’ He climbed awkwardly to his feet, with his hands still held out before him. ‘I meant no harm.’ He tried again to leave.
‘Wait!’ Ordaana grabbed his shoulder. ‘Finavar?’ She scowled. ‘Don’t I know that name?’
Finavar’s heart sank. He had no desire to reminisce. Why had he not just stayed in the cave and waited for death?
Ordaana continued staring at him and he reluctantly nodded. ‘Yes, my lady, you know me. I am one of your subjects. I’m a shadow-dancer. Before it burned, Locrimere was my home.’
Ordaana blanched and let go of his shoulder. She tried, uselessly, to pat down her nest of silver hair and smooth out the tattered remains of her robes. Then she waved at Finavar’s emaciated body. ‘I took you for a wanderer, or a roaming seer.’ Then she narrowed her eyes and approached him again, pointing the knife at his narrow chest. ‘But why would I know your name? I was never in the habit of remembering my subjects.’
Finavar looked wistfully up at the distant cave mouth, sensing that he would not escape for a while yet.
Ordaana followed the direction of his gaze and flinched. ‘Is there someone else up there? Others from Locrimere?’
Finavar shook his head. ‘None that still breathe.’
This seemed to calm Ordaana and she continued interrogating him. ‘Why do I recognise your name?’ She stared at his face. ‘You even look a little familiar. Are you sure you’re just a lowborn?’
Finavar stared back at her, his eyes gleaming and wild. ‘Some of your subjects called me by a different name: the Darkling Prince.’
Ordaana’s eyes widened and then she laughed again. This time the sound was a thin shriek and her body shook with the force of it. ‘You? The mighty Darkling Prince?’ She hugged herself, trying to stifle her laughter. Her shoulders refused to cease their shuddering and Ordaana reeled away from Finavar, shaking her head violently.
As she whirled around the clearing, Finavar saw his chance and began to edge back into the trees.
‘Wait!’ Ordaana rushed after him and dragged him back into the clearing, still laughing at the sight of his wasted limbs.
‘Sit with me for a moment,’ she demanded, shoving him to the ground. ‘Amuse your lady once last time, bard.’ She dropped to the ground beside him and leant towards him with an eager expression on her face. ‘I sense that you’ve ruined yourself almost as effectively as I have.’
Finavar slumped against a tree, too weak to resist. ‘I have no tales left to tell, my lady.’
‘Tell me your own tale, I order it!’
Finavar shrugged. ‘I’m dying,’ he said, flatly.
Ordaana laughed again, rolling onto the ground. Then she sat up and clapped him on the back. ‘Oh, but you’ve lost none of your wit, versifier!’ She waved at his protruding ribs. ‘Do you think I can’t see that?’ She leant closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘But why? Tell me what happened.’ There was a note of hunger in her voice; desperation, even. ‘Tell me what has driven you to such despair. The last time I saw you, you were quite the young firebrand. Now you’re a withered vine. What changed?’
Finavar glanced up at the cave again.
Ordaana clutched his bony hand in hers. ‘Then I will let you leave, I promise. I will not deprive the mighty Darkling Prince of his final rest.’
Finavar sighed, seeing he would not escape without some kind of explanation.
‘My younger brother, Jokleel, lies in that cave. He’s dead. I killed him.’
Ordaana’s laughter seemed on the verge of overwhelming her, but she managed to stifle it and nodded for him to continue.
Finavar stared back at her, unwilling to share his shame.
Ordaana squeezed his hand tighter, until he could feel the bones grinding against each other.
‘What do you care of my story?’ Finavar’s eyes glittered in their sunken pits. ‘I’m a lowborn. What is my life to you?’
‘Tell me!’ hissed Ordaana, her lips curling back from her teeth.
Finavar closed his eyes for a moment. The last thing he wished to do was recount the tale of how he failed Jokleel, but he could see Ordaana would accept nothing else.
He began slowly, hesitating over his words, teasing the facts out like splinters. ‘We were foundlings. Jokleel had no parent but me.’ He licked his cracked lips and looked at everything but Ordaana’s face. ‘But when he was a child I would sing to him – tales of Orion; legends of Ariel’s Consort-King.’ He sneered. ‘I told him we could never be orphaned with such a noble being watching over us.’
Ordaana winced at the mention of Ariel, but Finavar continued without noticing, his voice sounding more confident as he warmed to his theme.
‘Jokleel had no love of violence, you understand, or war. He saw the things that I was blind to. He was in tune with the forest in a way I could never fully understand; but I ignored that, arrogant fool that I was, and taught him the Dance of Blades. I taught him everything that came so naturally to me, assuming it must be right for him too.’ He clutched his head in his hands. ‘I told him that we could prove our worthiness to the king by becoming the finest shadow-dancers he had ever seen.’ A bitter laugh fell from his lips. ‘My brother was born wise and I turned him into a fool.’
‘You said you killed him.’
Finavar kept his head in his hands. ‘Not with my own hands, but I killed him just the same.’
Ordaana looked vaguely disappointed, but nodded for him to continue.
‘We proved our skill. Many times. We danced like Loec Himself. Jokleel never truly revelled in it – the violence, I mean – but I kept him close and we made a name for ourselves. Others joined us and we finally achieved our goal.’ Finavar lifted his head from his hands and looked up at the mountain. ‘We were here at Drúne Fell when the Wild Hunt rode out. We were here by Orion’s side when he destroyed the outsiders. We proved our worth. And, in the midst of the battle, Jokleel received his reward.’
‘Your brother died in the battle? Is that what you mean? Is that all you have to tell?’ She threw Finavar’s hand back into his lap. ‘What tragedy is there in that? He made a heroic end of himself. He died covered in glory.’
‘There was no glory!’ Finavar glared at Ordaana. ‘Jokleel was butchered. Butchered by his own king. Cut down by the one person I raised him to trust.’
Ordaana nodded, slowly, and the sneer dropped from her face. ‘I see.’ She glanced up at the inky void of the cave mouth. ‘You sacrificed your brother to a false king.’
For a few moments, Ordaana relaxed. Her shoulders dropped and the taut, manic edge slipped from her features. She looked at Finavar with something that might have been pity.
They sat there in silence for a while. Then Finavar frowned. ‘A false king?’
‘Of course. We have all been lied to, Finavar, not just you.’
Ordaana sat back up and waved at her torn robes. ‘Who do you think drove me to this state?’
‘Orion?’
‘Ariel! The other half of that venomous lie.’ The sneer returned to her face. ‘Naieth and the “wise” have fooled us all into worshiping beings that have no love for us. What Orion did to your brother is just a glimpse of the disdain they have for us, Finavar. They care for nothing but their own immortality. We are cattle to them. Cattle. As long as they rule we are doomed. They will be the death of the asrai, if I do not stop them.’
Even from the pit of his despair, Finavar could not quite accept this. He began to protest but Ordaana spoke over him.
‘I know them, Finavar,’ she said. ‘I served that wretched queen for lifetimes. I know everything about her. Everything. And she cast me aside like an old gown. She ruined me on a whim.’
Finavar recalled what he knew of Ordaana – that she had returned from the court of the Mage Queen one summer, furious enough to burn down her own sacred glades. And she had never returned to serve again.
‘What happened?’ he asked, intrigued despite himself.
Ordaana took a deep, trembling breath. ‘I took a lover, Finavar. Is that such a terrible crime for a noblewoman? My drooling rake of a husband bedded half of Locrimere. Was it so awful of me to seek solace in the arms of another?’
Finavar could think of nothing to say. The protocols of the highborn were a mystery to him.
‘Ariel felt that my infidelity was indecorous; inappropriate for a lady of her court. Can you believe that? Indecorous!’ Ordaana’s voice rose to a higher pitch and tiny blue flames began to crackle between her fingertips. ‘My lover was a noble. More noble than Beldeas could ever be. More noble than that wretched queen, certainly.’ She stared into the past, recalling her lost love. ‘He was a prince from the north – a dancer, like yourself, but highborn and proud.’ Her voice grew husky with emotion. ‘And he loved me. Truly loved me. Loved me enough to risk everything. Loved me enough to give me a child.’
As Ordaana recalled her lover, the blue flame rippled up her arms and flashed in her tear-filled eyes.
Finavar gasped and backed away, but Ordaana was too lost in her tale to notice.
‘Can you believe that such a wanton creature as Ariel, who takes a new lover every spring, decided that I was unworthy of her?’ She reached out and grabbed Finavar’s shoulder again, holding him in place. ‘She banished me, Finavar. She sent me home like a scolded child, covered in shame. She made a fool of me. How could I show my face at court after that?’
‘And the fire?’
Ordaana flinched. ‘You know of the fire?’ She shook her head, remembering that Finavar was from Locrimere. ‘Of course you know.’ Her tone changed. The rage ebbed away, to be replaced by something else. Shame, perhaps. ‘Like your poor brother, I had been trained to serve.’ She held out a hand and for a second the whole clearing pulsed with blue light. It blazed from every leaf and stem until Finavar had to shield his eyes. Ordaana lowered her hand and the light faded. ‘I’m charged with the lifeblood of that witch, Finavar. Can I be blamed if my rage carries more consequence than that of a less noble soul?’
She hugged herself and rocked back on her heels. ‘Was it my fault that curses turned to flames in my mouth?’
Finavar nodded, relieved to see that the blue fire was fading from her flesh. ‘So you burned your glades in a fit of rage. It was Ariel’s rejection that–’
‘I didn’t know she was in there!’ Ordaana’s words spiralled into a thin screech and she no longer seemed to be addressing Finavar. ‘I didn’t know!’
‘Who was in there? Ariel?’
‘My daughter,’ giggled Ordaana, rolling into the mud at the edge of the brook. She thrust her hands into the ground and smeared her face with soil. Then she sat bolt upright and turned to face Finavar, her face completely expressionless.
‘I murdered my own child.’ She stared at him with mud dripping from her cheeks. ‘Do you see? Now do you see the real meaning of tragedy? Do you see what pain really is? I did not lie to someone, as you did. I set her home alight and she burned. I murdered her. My own blood. I murdered her, Finavar. I murdered–’ Her words stopped suddenly and her head dropped onto her chest.
For a moment, Finavar saw something beyond his own loss. As he watched Ordaana, trembling with grief and guilt, he felt a wave of simple pity. Then he frowned. ‘My lady,’ he said, softly.
She was too lost in her grief to hear, so he repeated himself a little louder.
‘My lady.’
Ordaana’s head snapped up like a marionette and she stared at him.
His voice faltered under the intensity of her gaze. ‘Ariel and Orion – you said they would
be the doom of the asrai.’
For a few seconds she stared at him in silence. Then she spoke in a calm voice, as though nothing had happened. ‘Of course. Naieth has convinced us all that we need to be ruled, but we do not. The last hope of the asrai is rebellion – to throw down those deluded tyrants and rule ourselves.’
There was a rustling of leaves on the other side of the clearing and Ordaana rose to her feet. ‘Some guardian you are, Death’s-head. I could have been murdered a hundred times for all you care.’
What Finavar had mistaken for a bundle of sticks, walked across the clearing and bowed to Ordaana. He realised it was a forest spirit of some kind, no taller than a foot or so, glimmering with the same light he had seen flashing across Ordaana’s fingers. The thing’s name obviously came from the shape of its head – a long, bone-like sphere that wobbled on its brittle neck.
‘Have you found the route?’ Ordaana asked.
The spirit nodded, peering around its mistress to look at Finavar.
‘Do not concern yourself with that.’ She nodded at the trees. ‘Show me the way.’
The spirit still hesitated, looking at the knife tucked into Ordaana’s belt.
‘Yes!’ she said, losing her patience. ‘I have it! Now show me the way back.’
Finavar dragged himself onto his feet and lurched towards Ordaana. Now that she was about to leave he suddenly wished to hear more of her strange ideas.
‘You said you would stop them,’ he said.
Ordaana looked back in surprise, as though she had already forgotten him.
‘What?’
‘You said you would stop Ariel and Orion.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Did I?’ She placed a hand on the silver knife and pursed her lips. ‘Perhaps I said too much.’ She gave the spirit a meaningful glance, then stepped closer to Finavar and drew the blade.
He shook his head, realising he was far too weak to defend himself. He tried to back away but tripped and sent himself crashing to the ground again.
Ordaana stared at him for a moment then another violent burst of laughter rocked her body. ‘What does it matter?’ She laughed so hard that tears began to course through the mud on her cheeks. ‘Look at you. You’re already dead.’ She clutched her shoulder and, as quick as it came, the laughter ceased and she adopted a stern expression. ‘What does it matter?’ she repeated, in a much quieter voice.