Child of Flame

by Kate Elliott

  “Shouldn’t we tie ourselves to the tree? What if we fall off the edge? You said yourself that this fog marks the edge of your lands.”

  He chuckled. “A worthy idea, and a cautious plan that speaks well of you. But there is no danger in the borderlands. We are prisoners in our own land, because all the borders fold back on themselves.”

  “Except through the burning stone.”

  “Even so.” He led her into the fog.

  “Where are we going?” she called, but the mist deadened all sound. She could not even see him, a step ahead of her, only knew he was there by the pull of the arrow’s shaft against her palm.

  He knew where he was going. In six steps she stumbled onto a stone step, bruising her shin. She stood on a staircase lined by monsters’ heads, each one carved so that it seemed to be emerging from a stone flower that bore twelve petals. The monster was the head of a snake, or that of a big, sleek cat with a toothy yawn, or some melding of the two: she couldn’t tell which. Some had been painted red and white while others had golden-brown dapplings and succulent green tongues, lacy black curling ears or gold-petaled flowers rayed out from their circular eyes. On either side of the staircase lay the broad expanse of a vast pyramidal structure, too steep to climb, that had simply been painted a blinding white, as stark as the fog. Here and there, paint had chipped away to reveal gray stone beneath.

  She followed the old sorcerer up the steps. Despite everything, this staircase up which they toiled nagged at her. It seemed familiar, like a whispered name calling from her memory.

  They walked up out of the fog on a steep incline, surrounded by those ghastly, powerful faces. The stair steps went on, and on, and on, until she had to stop to catch her breath. She unsealed the water jug and sipped, cooling her parched throat, but when she offered the jug to the old sorcerer, he declined. He waited patiently for her to finally get up and go again. At last, they came to the top of the pyramid.

  At her back, below and beyond, lay the dense bank of fog. Before her lay another city, somewhat smaller than the magnificent city by the lake but no less impressive for its courtyards and platforms laid out in tidy harmony. An avenue lined by buildings marched out from the plaza that lay at the base of the huge pyramid they now stood on. Every stone surface was painted with bright murals: giant spotted yellow cats, black eagles, golden phoenix, burning arrows clutched in the jaws of red snakes crowned by feathered headdresses. The city lay alive with color and yet was so quiet that she expected ghosts to skirl down its broad avenues, weeping and moaning.

  Wind brushed her. Clouds boiled over the hills that marked the distant outskirts of the city, and she saw lightning. Thunder boomed, but no rain fell. She couldn’t even smell rain, only dust on the wind and a creeping shiver on her skin. Her hair rose on the nape of her neck.

  “It’s not safe so high where lightning might strike,” remarked the old sorcerer.

  He descended at once down stair steps so steep that she only dared follow him by turning around and going down backward. Behind, the fog simply sliced off that portion of the city that lay beyond the great pyramid, a line as abrupt as a knife’s cut.

  Thunder clapped and rolled. Lightning struck the top of the pyramid, right where they’d been standing. Her tongue buzzed with the sting of its passing. Her foot touched earth finally, dry and cool.

  She knew where she was.

  Long ago, when she was a child, when she and Da had fled from the burning villa, he had brought her through an ancient city. In that city, the wind had muttered through the open shells of buildings. Vast ruins had lain around them, the skeleton of a city that had once claimed the land. Along the avenues, she had seen the faded remnants of old murals that had once adorned those long walls. Wind and rain and time had worn the paint from those surfaces, leaving only the tired grain of ancient stone blocks and a few scraps of surviving murals, faded and barely visible.

  The ruins had ended at the shoreline of the sea as abruptly as if a knife had sheared them off.

  Da had muttered words, an ancient spell, and for an instant she had seen the shadow form of the old city mingling with the waves, the memory of what once had been, not drowned by the sea but utterly gone. Wonder bloomed in her heart, just as it had on that long-ago day.

  “This is that city,” she said aloud.

  The old sorcerer had begun to walk on, but he paused.

  “I’ve seen the other part of this city,” she explained. “The part that would have lain there—” She pointed toward the wall of fog.

  “But the ruins were so old. Far older than the cities built by the Dariyans. That was the strangest thing.”

  “That they were old?”

  “Nay, nay.” Her thoughts had already leaped on. “That the ruins ended so abruptly. As if the land was cut away from the Earth.”

  He smiled sadly. “No memory remains among humankind of the events of those days?”

  She could only shake her head, perplexed by his words.

  “Come,” he said.

  At the far end of the avenue rose a second monumental structure, linked to the great pyramid by the roadway. Platforms rose at intervals on either side. It was hard to fathom what kind of engineering, or magic, had built this city. The emptiness disturbed her. She could imagine ancient assemblies crowding the avenue, brightly-clothed women and men gathered to watch spectacles staged on the platforms or to pray as their holy caretakers offered praise to their gods from the perilous height of the great pyramid. Yet such a crowd had left no trace of its passage, not even ghosts.

  It was a long walk and an increasingly hot one as the storm rolled past and dissolved into the wall of fog. Not one drop of rain fell. She had to stop twice to drink, although the old sorcerer refused a portion both times.

  The other temple was also a four-sided pyramid, sloped in stair steps and chopped off short. At the top loomed the visage of a huge stone serpent. An opening gaped where the serpent’s mouth ought to have been, framed by two triangular stacks of pale stone.

  Flutes and whistles pierced the silence. Had the ghosts of the city come to haunt her? Color flashed in the distance and resolved into a procession of people dressed in feathered cloaks and beaded garments, colors and textures so bright that they would have been gaudy against any background, although the vast backdrop of the city and the fierce blue of the sky almost swallowed them. At the head of the procession bobbed a round standard on a pole, a circular sheet of gold trimmed with iridescent green plumes as broad across as a man’s arms outstretched. It spun like a turning wheel. Its brilliance staggered her.

  The procession wound its way in through the serpent’s mouth, vanishing into the temple.

  They came to the stairs, where Eldest Uncle paused while she caught her breath and checked each of her weapons: her knife, her good friend Lucian’s sword, and Seeker of Hearts, her bow. A wash of voices issued out through the serpent’s mouth like the voices of the dead seeping up from the underworld.

  “They will not be friendly,” he said. “Be warned: speak calmly. In truth, young one, I took you on because I fear that only you and I can spare both our peoples a greater destruction than that which we are already doomed to suffer.”

  His words—delivered in the same cool matter-of-fact tone he might have used if he were commenting on an interesting architectural feature—chilled her. The long avenue behind her lay wreathed in a heat haze. Wind raised dust. The great pyramid shone in uncanny and massive splendor.

  “I faced down Hugh,” she said at last. “I can face down anyone.”

  They climbed the steps toward the serpent’s head. Coming up before it, Liath found herself face-to-face with those two flanking little pyramids of stone, except they weren’t stone at all.

  They were stacks of grinning skulls.

  “What are those?” she demanded, heart racing in shock as vacant eyes stared back at her.

  “The fallen.” A half-dozen bows and quivers lay on a flat stone placed in front of the serpent’s mouth
, and a dozen or more spears rested against the stone. All of the weapons had stone tips. The only metal she saw came from three knives, forged of copper or bronze.

  “Set your weapons here on the peace stone.”

  “And walk in there unarmed?”

  “No weapons are allowed on the council grounds. That is the custom. That way no blood may be shed in the heart of the city.”

  She hesitated, but the sight of so many other weapons made it easier to acquiesce. She did not know their powers, but she knew how to call fire, if necessary. She set down her weapons, yet he stopped her before she passed the threshold.

  “Water, too, has been forbidden. Even a sip might be used as a bribe. Let us drink deep now. It may be many hours before we emerge from the tomb of the ancient mothers.”

  The water was brackish by now, warmed by the sun’s heat. But it was water and therefore miraculous beyond words to one who is thirsty.

  Talcing the half-empty jug, he hid it among the skulls. Their dry, grinning faces had lost their horror. They weren’t even ghosts, just the memory of folk who had once lived and bled as she did. What fate had led them to this end?

  “Come.” The old sorcerer gestured toward the serpent’s maw.

  It seemed very dark inside. Even the whispering of distant voices had stilled, as if in expectation of their arrival.

  She had faced down Hugh, she had learned courage, but she still murmured a prayer under her breath. “Lord, watch over me now, I pray you. Lady, lend me your strength.”

  Somewhere, in another place, Sanglant surely wondered what had become of her, and maybe Blessing cried, fretting in unfamiliar arms. It seemed to her, as she stepped into the dark opening as though into a serpent’s mouth, that she had a long way to go to get back to them.

  2

  NORTH of the Alfar Mountains the ground fell precipitously into a jumble of foothills and river valleys. At this time of year, that place where late summer slumbered into early autumn, the roads were as good as they’d ever be and the weather remained pleasant except for the occasional drenching thunder-shower. They kept up a brisk pace, traveling as many as six leagues in a day. There were just enough day laborers on the road looking for the last bits of harvest work that their little group didn’t seem too conspicuous, as long as they didn’t draw attention to themselves.

  It was a silent journey for the most part.

  When they passed folk coming from the north, Sanglant asked questions, but the local folk, when he could understand their accent, claimed to have no knowledge of the movements of the king. Nor was there any reason they should have. But he heard one day from a trio of passing fraters that the king and his entourage had been expected in Wertburg, so at the crossroads just past the ferry crossing over the eastern arm of the Vierwald Lake, they took the northeast fork that led through the lush fields of upper Wayland toward the Malnin River valley. In such rich countryside, more people were to be found on the roads, going about their business.

  Still, it was with some surprise that, about twelve days after the conflagration at Verna and less than seven days’ travel past the lake crossing, they met outriders at midday where forest gave way to a well-tended orchard.

  “Halt!”

  A zealous young fellow seated on a swaybacked mare rode forward to block the road. He held a spear in one hand as he looked them over. No doubt they appeared a strange sight: a tall, broad-shouldered man outfitted like a common man-at-arms and carrying a swaddled baby on his back but riding a noble gelding whose lines and tackle were fit for a prince, and a woman whose exotic features might make any soldier pause. The pony and the goat, at least, were unremarkable. Luckily, the young man couldn’t see Jerna, who had darted away to conceal herself in the boughs of an apple tree.

  He stared for a bit, mostly at the woman, then found his voice. “Have you wanderers come to petition the king?”

  “So we have,” said Sanglant, keeping his voice calm although his heart hammered alarmingly. “Is the king nearby?”

  “The court’s in residence at Angenheim, but it’s a long wait for petitioners. Many have come—”

  “Here, now, Matto, what are these two?” The sergeant in charge rode up. His shield bore the sigil of Wendar at its center, Lion, Eagle, and Dragon, marking him as a member of the king’s personal retinue. He had the look of a terrier about him: ready to worry any stray rat to pieces.

  “They come up the road like any others,” protested Matto.

  “So might the devil. They might be the Enemy’s cousins, by the look of their faces. As foreign as you please, I’ll thank you to notice, lad. I’d like to know how they come by that fine nobleman’s horse. We’re looking for bandits, Matto. You’ve got to stay alert.”

  “Trouble, Sergeant?” asked another soldier, riding over.

  There were half a dozen men-at-arms in sight, scattered along the road. None were soldiers Sanglant recognized. New recruits, maybe, given sentry duty. They looked bored.

  Boredom always spelled trouble, and it wasn’t only these men-at-arms who were bored. Sanglant glanced at his mother. Even after twelve days in her company, he still found her disconcerting. She gazed at young Matto with the look of a panther considering its next meal, and she even licked her lips thoughtfully, as though the air brought her a taste of his sweet flesh.

  Sanglant knew how to make quick decisions. If he didn’t recognize these men, then it was likely they’d come to court after he and Liath had left so precipitously over a year ago and so wouldn’t recognize him in their turn. He turned to the sergeant. “Take me to Captain Fulk, and I promise you’ll be well rewarded.”

  “Huh!” grunted the sergeant, taken aback. “How’d you know Captain Fulk returned to the king’s progress just a fortnight ago?”

  “We were separated.” Sanglant leaned sideways so that the man could see Blessing’s sweet little face peeping from the swaddling bound to his back.

  “Ah.” The sergeant’s gaze was drawn to Sanglant’s mother, but he looked away as quickly, as though something in her expression unsettled him. As well it might. “This is your wife, then?”

  Sanglant laughed sharply, not without anger. “Nay. This woman is—” He could not bring himself to speak a title she had not earned. “This woman is a relative to me, a companion on the road. She’s a foreigner, as you see. My father is Wendish.”

  “What happened to your wife, then?”

  Grief still chafed him as bitterly as any chains. “My wife is gone.”

  The sergeant softened, looking back at the infant. “May the Lord and Lady watch over you, friend. Need you an escort? There’s another sentry post some ways up the road, nearer to the palace, and then the palace fortifications to talk your way through. I’ll send a soldier to vouch for you.”

  “I’ll take one with thanks. If you’ll give me your name, I’ll see that it’s brought to the king’s attention.”

  The sergeant chuckled while his men looked at each other in disbelief. “You’re as sure of yourself as the rooster that crows at dawn, eh? Well, then, when you take supper with the king, tell him that Sergeant Cobbo of Longbrook did you a favor.” He slapped his thigh, amused at his joke. “Go on, then. Matto, be sure you escort them all the way to Captain Fulk, and give him over to none other. The captain will know what to do with them if they’ve lied to us.”

  Matto was a talkative soul. Sanglant found it easy to draw him out. They rode on through the orchard and passed into another tangle of forest, where Jerna took advantage of the dappled light to drop down from the trees and coil around Blessing’s swaddling bands. He could sense her cool touch on his neck and even see the pale shimmer of her movement out of the corner of his eye, but Matto, like most of humankind, seemed oblivious to her. He chattered on as Sanglant fed him questions. His mother was a steward at a royal estate. His father had died in the wars many years ago, and his mother had married another man. Matto seemed young because he was young. He and his stepfather hadn’t gotten along, and he’d left for
the king’s service as soon as he turned fifteen.

  “I’ve been with the king’s court for fully six months now,” he confided. “They put me to work as a stable hand at first, but even Sergeant Cobbo says I’ve got a knack for weapons, so I was promoted to sentry duty three months ago.” He glanced back toward Sanglant’s mother, perhaps hoping she’d be impressed by his quick rise, but nothing about humankind interested her, as Sanglant had discovered.

  “You’ve got a hankering to see battle, haven’t you, lad?” Sanglant felt immeasurably ancient riding alongside this enthusiastic youth, although in truth he wasn’t even old enough to be the lad’s father.

  Matto sized him up. “You’ve seen battle, haven’t you?”

  “So I have.”

  “I guess you were part of the group that went south to Aosta with Princess Theophanu. It was a miracle that Captain Fulk kept as much of his company together as he did, wasn’t it? What a disaster!”

  “Truly.” Sanglant changed the subject before Matto discovered that he hadn’t the least idea what disaster had befallen Theophanu’s expedition in Aosta. “Why so wide a sentry net?”

  Matto puffed up considerably, proud to know something his companion did not. “The court attracts petitioners, and petitioners attract bandits.”

  “Aren’t these Duke Conrad’s lands? I’d have thought he’d have put a stop to banditry.”

  “So he might, if he were here. He hasn’t even come to the king’s feast and celebration! The Eagle sent to his fortress at Bederbor said he wasn’t in residence. No one knows where he’s gone!”

  What was Conrad up to? No doubt the duke was capable of almost anything. But he could hardly ask this lad that kind of question. They came to a stream and slowed for their mounts to pick their way across. Where a beech tree swept low over pooling water, he let Resuelto drink while he waited for his mother. Although she had the pony for a mount, she refused to ride. Still, she caught up quickly enough; she was the strongest walker he’d ever met. The goat balked at the water’s edge, and his mother dragged it across the rocky shallows impatiently. She had formidable arms, tightly muscled. With the sleeves of Liath’s tunic rolled up, the tattooed red snake that ran from the back of her hands up her arms seemed to stretch and shudder as she hauled the goat up the far bank. Matto stared at her. Sanglant couldn’t tell if the boy had been afflicted with the infatuation that strikes youth as suddenly as lightning, or if he had suddenly realized how truly strange she was.