by Rj Barker
“Saved you,” I said. His eyes couldn’t rest. They moved from me and around the clearing, gaze resting on his people, the corpses. As he stared he revolved his sword hilt in his hand, the blade glinting as he did. It was a habit of his, something he did before action.
“I don’t know that you have,” he said.
“You saw the fire,” I said. He continued to stare at me. “May I stand?” He nodded, aimlessly.
“I see fire everywhere, Girton. It glows, it burns around me, it burns inside my troops, in Rufra, in everyone. But the fire was not in the fire. How strange is that? That the fire had no fire?” A smile, as if he had said something clever.
“It is life, that feeling.” The residual heat of the day left me, and my core became one of ice. “You feel life.”
“Feel?” He shook his head, slowly. “No, I only see it. Is this what you see?”
“Something like it.”
“How do you stop it?”
“I …” There was no answer to that. It was a thing that was part of me. Boros may as well have asked me how to stop seeing red or blue or green. “I just do.” And clearly I saw and felt more than Boros. I was glad of it, because that meant he was not like me. What I had done had given him some insight but he was no sorcerer—a good thing for the Tired Lands. He had never been one for discipline, more a man given to on-the-spur acts and with magic he could have swept away thousands of lives. “I do not think it can be stopped, Boros,” I said.
“Barin.” He grinned: a wan thing. “You have to call me Barin now.” I nodded. “You are beautiful, Girton, you know? You are not like the others.” He reached out a trembling hand to touch the skin of my face, getting white greasepaint on his fingertips. “People glow, all of them, and it is beautiful. But you glow brightest, most beautiful of all. You are like a net of gold.”
“A net?”
He nodded and withdrew his hand.
“Aye, a glowing net, though what you fish for I do not know.” He leaned in, “Am I truly me, Girton? Do you know that? Because I do not. I see such things. Such horrors. Did I lower men and women on to spikes for fun? Did I skin them alive and laugh?”
“No.” I grabbed him by his biceps, hard, shook him slightly. “No. Never. That was not you.”
“But I remember these things. I enjoy the memories.”
“No, they are remnants of your brother’s cruelty, Boros, I am sure of it. And like any bad memory, if you push it away forcefully enough it will vanish.”
“He did such things.” His eyes were wide as he stared around the clearing. They came to rest on his Heartblade, the huge man who stood across the clearing from us.
“I think what you see is caused by what I did. I think it will fade.” He nodded aimlessly, still staring at his Heartblade.
“Not everyone is beautiful.” I turned. Just like Fureth’s guard the man was that strange interlocking, twisting storm of red and gold. “Him, for instance,” he whispered. “He is wrong.” I nodded, but the more we talked the more convinced I became that he was not the only one. Boros was wrong too. His voice, his demeanour, all were just off, just not quite him. Where was the humour? That had always been what defined him for me. “Tomorrow,” he said, “I will give my allegiance to Rufra, another vote will be welcomed by him.” He looked down at the floor. “Though I will not be, of course.”
“He will be glad of …” My voice tailed off as I watched his Heartblade. The man stood absolutely still in the hot night air. “No, do not do that. Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because blessed are leaving both Rufra and Marrel and we do not know where they go. You, Barin, I mean, may well be part of it.”
“And if I have his memories I may remember it, for Rufra, so …”
“No, there is no surety in that. But they will approach you, I have no doubt of it. If you wish to help Rufra this is the best way.” He hugged himself. “Pretend to be who they think you are.”
“Girton, these men, these women that surround me. The things they talk of, the things they enjoy, I cannot …” I put my hand on his arm.
“You are strong, Boros. You have always been strong. Be strong now. Find out as much as you can and send me a message when you have something.”
“I am alone, Girton,” he said. “Lonely. They watch me. They know something is wrong.”
“They cannot, Boros. And when this is over you can change those who serve you. It may take a while, but when you have changed enough of them maybe Rufra will forgive, eh?” I squeezed his arm.
“Maybe.” He leaned in close, taking my hand. “Sometimes, I feel like Barin is still in here.” He tapped his head. “Still alive in my memories. And I wonder, if he still lives in me, did I still burn on that throne, Girton? Did I?”
“No. You are here, Boros, with me.”
“This me is, but am I real? When I watched my brother suffer, I enjoyed it. But was it really me who screamed in agony on the pyre?” He was far away, eyes lost as if he were drugged.
“Put all this aside.” I said, as calmly as I could, but now I was near I could see the turmoil in his eyes, the fear and confusion. “I am your friend, Boros. I will always be your friend.”
There was silence then, as I looked on a face that was beautiful but just as tortured as the scarred face that had housed him before. When he spoke, he spoke so quietly I could barely hear him.
“I do not think I want you as a friend, Girton. I do not think it is safe,” he said, and turned away, gathering his guards and leaving me in the twilight, speechless and hurting inside.
It took me two hours to work my way back to the Low Tower, slipping through alleys, around buildings. The Children of Arnst had overrun the town. They perched on every street corner, they paraded down the larger roads led by men who were clearly warriors. I found a well and washed the greasepaint from my face in an effort not to be recognised. Few of the Children would ever have seen my face, but a sharp twinge of pain from my club foot reminded me how easy I was to pick out. Even from a distance my distinctive gait was likely to give me away. That I could sense the life of them was all that saved me as I slid from shadow to shadow under the cover of night and magic. The nearer I was to the Low Tower, the more concentrated they became. It was plain they were looking for me; they had moved most of their warriors close to Rufra’s compound.
“Dead gods,” I whispered to myself. I could see the Low Tower. The portcullis was open and a mixture of Rufra’s guard and highguard held torches which flooded the place with light. In their umbra the Children of Arnst waited. I felt no guilt at the thought of killing them, none at all. If they longed for the sad god then I would send them on the walk to the black palace gladly. But if I was seen entering the gate then the Children would try and stop me, and Rufra’s men would try and stop them. Again, this did not bother me unduly—I knew no soldiers better trained or more capable than Rufra’s—but the highguard were scattered among them. And though I had talked with their captain, Hurdyn, and I liked him, I had no idea of his allegiance. If they chose to turn on Rufra that would mean he was fighting on two sides, before and behind. Without his cavalry or mount archers he would struggle—even with the best of outcomes he would be left weakened. I slid back into the shadows to think.
Could I slip back into the castle? It was likely the Children had all the entrances covered, but not as thickly as here. Though, if the Children were running wild outside the castle looking for me then the Landsmen may well be guarding the inside and doing the same. Fureth and the Children were clearly closer than we had thought and they had shown it at the burning. Silently, I cursed Rufra for lighting up the entrance to the Low Tower. I knew he had done it for the best of reasons but a cloak of shadow would serve me better than a welcoming light.
A distraction was what I needed. I could go back into the town and try and find Govva and the people who believed that High King Darsese still lived. An attack by them may draw away enough of the Children for me to slip into the castle,
but I doubted any of her people would survive. If they had any sense they would be keeping themselves as hidden as they could now the Children seemed to rule the city.
I could kill, leave a trail of bodies, slip in and out of the shadows and lead the Children in circles. It was a high-risk strategy, they filled the streets and it would be a foolish citizen of Ceadoc that helped me or gave me shelter if the town belonged to the Children.
Far away on the night I heard doors crashing open, the sound of sudden violence hanging in the still hot air. People shouting, screaming. The Children were going from house to house in their search for me. I could feel them now, far out, a rope of faint golden lights slowly tightening around the gate to the Low Tower and like knots along it, those stranger bodies: red and gold, blood and life. I drew my blade. It seemed I had little choice but to attempt a distraction, that or be found anyway.
“Xus help me, this will be a long night,” I said under my breath.
And I heard the first bird, as an echo.
A single sad cry that barely carried through the air.
The second was louder.
Then a third, more definite.
Above me a speck of gold turned in circles, wheeling in the air. It was joined by another and another and another and more and more and more. Black birds filled the warm night with call and counter call. Filled the air with the whirr of wings. Filled my mind with warm light. More birds came, each adding to the glow until it became huge. One life became indistinguishable from the next and the noise of their voices filled the air: a force physical, beating on my ears and drawing the gaze of everyone hiding or standing around the gate to the Low Tower. The birdlights became formless, throbbing and almost losing cohesion, spreading through the night sky until they were thin as early morning stars. Coming together in a column, reaching up and then reversing their movement. The huge flock flowing through itself like a thread through a needle, diving for the land and just before they hit the ground the great flock split, twisting upwards, reaching for the sky again until they became a huge, ever-moving, roaring set of interlinking circles. It was almost impossible to take your eyes from them.
And when all eyes were firmly fixed on the birds, there was the first death.
One of the highguard: ten, maybe twelve steps out from the open portcullis. The circles of birds continued to rotate, a thousand thousand black-feathered bodies becoming a seething liquid mass. Until one left it, a blink-and-you-miss- it moment, an almost too-fast-to-follow movement that ended in a collision with the torch—turning the bird into a comet of flame as it extinguished the brand. The guardswoman stumbling back, confusion on her face. A second bird: hitting the torch of another highguard and turning her into a puddle of darkness surrounded by the painful reek of burning feathers. Another torch extinguished, this one held by one of Rufra’s soldiers: another small death. A man ran from the gate and a finger of furious birds reached out from the flock, sending him reeling back, in fear of losing his eyes. To my left one of the Children’s torches was knocked out of their hands.
“Go.” The voice was gold, a silence of the mind. “Go.”
And I moved, while every eye was mesmerised by the birds. While Xus’s creatures sacrificed their lives to create the shadows I needed and pull the eyes I feared away from me. I slipped from shadow to shadow and through the portcullis under the guise of the simple invisibility. I did not want to have to explain myself, or to have to speak to anyone. My day had been another hard day after a succession of hard days. I wanted to hide and so I headed to the place I felt most at home in any castle—the stables. It smelt like all stables, though stronger because of the heat of the air: earthy dung, stinging mount urine and the comfortable, animal smell of mounts and straw. I made my way to Xus’s stall, finding him stood docilely eating fodder. He gave a low, questioning rumble, as if he had been waiting for me all day and I was late. I ran a hand though his thick brown and white fur.
“I wish we had not come here, Xus.” He hissed in answer. “I miss Feorwic.” Another rumble. “She would not have liked it here, though. She would have neglected her training and spent all her time with you.” He nodded his great head, antlers rattling against the front of the stable. “I should spend more time with you,” I said, and he backed away from his food and lowered himself to the floor, curling round slightly to create a hollow against his side where I could sit. As a child this had been our way and I had often slept against his warmth, Feorwic had done the same. I sat, leaning back into him. “I miss her, Xus.” Suddenly I was fighting back tears, though there was no one there to see them, only Xus and he would not care. “I miss her.” He huffed, a comforting sound.
“That was reckless.” I looked up to find my master. “With the birds,” she added. “I don’t begin to know how you did it, but it was reckless. The Landsmen will hear of it and—”
“It was not me, Master.”
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow and limped forward, her crutch tap-tapping on the floor. “You have found the castle’s other sorcerer and recruited them to our cause?”
“No, though I have found much. I think the birds were the doing of Xus.”
“The god?”
“Well, it is not within our mount’s powers, unless you have been hiding things from me.”
She tried to smile, but it was overtaken by a grimace of pain as she lowered herself to the floor next to me.
“So, you truly are the Chosen of Xus? And what great things does he have planned for you?” Was she making fun of me? I could not be sure.
“Nothing. I do not think so, anyway. I just don’t think he likes the Children much.”
“I cannot say I blame him.” The mount let out a low growl that reverberated through my body, though I was sure he knew we did not speak of him.
“Neander spoke to me, Master, at the burning.” Another growl at my back.
“And he still lives? Well, it seems you can learn.”
“He said we were wrong, all those years ago, about what Queen Adran did at Maniyadoc. They were not training sorcerers at all.”
“And you have suddenly decided to start believing him?” Her face creased up into a real smile and Xus made a whuffling sound.
“He said they were training assassins and …”
Her smile fell away. She finished my sentence for me, but her words were quiet, spoken more to herself.
“… and that is why she wanted me to stay.”
“It makes sense, what he says, sort of. But why teach them magic before teaching them discipline?”
“Because …” said my master slowly, her voice cold and distant as she thought about a time long past “… that’s what Adran knew of me, Girton. All those years ago. I already had the magic. It saved my life, in a way. Then I started the martial training. So she must have thought that was the right way to do it. Drusl”—behind me, the growl, vibrating my body—“she was, what? Fourteen?”
“Fifteen,” I said.
“I was fourteen,” she said. “Fourteen when I began with the blade, though I was already a dancer. My father taught me to dance.” In those few sentences she had told me more about herself than ever before.
“He says we spoiled it, Master.”
Silence. Xus sneezed.
“Good.” She dug in her pockets, finding a wizened apple which she brushed against the bandages she bound her damaged leg with. “Imagine what Neander and Adran would have done with their own assassins.” The growl deepened, a subsonic rumble that moved through the floor as much as through the animal behind us.
“Neander says it has happened anyway.” The apple slowed as she rubbed it against her wounded leg.
“They are not assassins.” She stopped polishing the apple and stared at it. “They are just children.”
“Most of them.”
“Aye,” she said quietly. “Most of them.” Her tongue probed her front teeth, pushing out her top lip. “You can have this,” she said, giving me the apple. Xus let out a quiet whine.
>
“You have lost your appetite, Master?”
“How are you doing with the death of Berisa Marrel?” she said.
“I have barely had time to think of it, Master, and when I do I am left nothing but puzzled. It is an impossible killing.”
“Impossible, aye,” she said, the words creeping from her mouth. “Eat your apple,” she added. I took a bite. It was sour and rubbery. “Maybe, if it was impossible, then it did not happen?” I threw the apple to Xus and he snapped it out of the air.
“I do not think Marrel ap Marrel is that good an actor, Master.”
“I did not say he was. I think he is absolutely earnest in his belief she died.”
Xus crunched noisily on the apple while I thought.
“You think she faked her death?” My master nodded. “How could she fake her death that well? That her own husband would not realise she pretended? And his warriors, they would know death.”
My master stared at me, then her eyes glazed and she slowly keeled over to the side. Xus brought his head around, tipping his antlers forward so his could focus better on my master slumped against his side. He blew air noisily out of his nostrils and turned away from her, as if annoyed by her playacting, or maybe at the lack of more apples.
“Master, I …” She did not move and I knew, from long experience of her, that she was quite capable of staying like this until she had made her point. “Very well,” I said, and reached for her neck. Her dark skin had greyed as if her life was gone, and she was cold and clammy to the touch. I felt no pulse at her neck. Even the golden light that was the life within her was dimmed. “Very clever, Master, but you are an assassin, not the wife of a wealthy blessed.”
She sat up abruptly, taking a moment to focus on the world around her. The life within her flared and Xus let out a hiss.
“Think on that, Girton.”
“You think Berisa Marrel was an assassin?”
“I have thought it for a while, but what you say confirms it.”
I laughed, but it slowly died in my mouth. Xus laid his head down and shut his eyes, as if to sleep. “You are serious, Master?”