ARC: Sunstone

by Freya Robertson

  Perhaps she had been mistaken and it had all been a dream, something her mind had made up to fool this poor, pitiful woman – who had barely anything to call her own – that she mattered, that her life was worth living. Maybe it had been a creation of a mind intent on survival, even to the extent of trying to fool the body in which it resided?

  She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She could not give up hope or she wouldn’t be able to take another step. She had to believe it was all real. The glowing acorn, the baby’s rapid growth – these must all be signs that they were nearing the Surface, and that the road they were on – literally and metaphorically – was the right one.

  She lifted her head. “We should get going.”

  Nele met her gaze, his eyes glinting in the golden light. “I do not think Kytte can carry on.”

  She looked across at the injured girl. Kytte lay on her side, her face bleached of all colour, features racked with pain. Her breath rattled, and blood already seeped through the bandages they had tried to wrap around her.

  “I think the broken ribs have damaged organs.” Amabil struggled to hold back tears, and anger flared her cheeks red. “This was such a stupid idea. We should not have left home.”

  “We had no choice,” Geve said calmly, although Sarra could see the worry etched in the lines on his face. “The Arbor sent the dreams of the Surface to us for a reason. We were meant to escape and find our way to it.”

  Tears ran down Amabil’s cheeks and she dashed them away furiously, but as she opened her mouth to reply, Kytte gave a strangled cough, turned and vomited blood onto the floor.

  They gathered around and tried to calm her, but it was clear to Sarra within moments that the young woman was beyond help. Her body twitched for a while and more blood issued forth, but her movements slowed, and eventually her chest failed to rise and fall, her eyes glassing over.

  “Is she…?” Betune couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

  Geve nodded, swallowing, and closed her eyes.

  “We cannot just leave her here,” Amabil whispered.

  Sarra pushed herself to her feet. She wanted to weep and wail and take the time to burn the body in their usual tradition, but the thought of Comminor hastening through the corridors urged her on. “We do not have the time.”

  Amabil went scarlet. “I am not leaving her here like this!”

  “Then you carry her.” Sarra picked up her bag, hardening her heart.

  When she turned, however, and saw the tears in Amabil’s eyes, she melted and put her arms around her. “I am so sorry. My heart feels broken too. But we cannot wait, we simply cannot.”

  “I know.” Amabil sobbed into her shoulder. “I know we had no choice in coming, and that we have to go on now. By why did she have to die, why?”

  “I do not know.” Sarra held her tightly, meeting Geve’s gaze over the top of her head. His eyes held pity, but he gave a small smile at the sight of her comforting the other girl.

  Sarra itched to get going, but she made herself wait until Amabil’s sobs died down. Together, they all laid Kytte’s body out and crossed her arms over her chest, cleaned away the blood around her face and covered her with one of the wet blankets. Then they collected their belongings together and left the body behind.

  Sarra led the way, with no more idea than before of which way to go, hoping the decisions she made were not random choices but instead some inherent ability she was unaware of to sense the right path. Truth to tell, though, she knew they were lost. The air grew cool and stale, each tunnel and cave so similar to the one before she wondered if they were going around in circles. Certainly it didn’t feel as if they were going up. The paths remained level, each passage seemingly the same width, with the same smooth walls and faded paintings that she couldn’t quite make out.

  And then finally one of the tunnels widened, and without warning opened out into a largish room of a size similar to the first one with the pool. They all filtered onto the raised platform and stared around silently. The platform ran around the walls above a floor that looked as if it should be filled with water, but instead all that remained was rock. But instead of the surfaces they were used to, like the irregular surface in their own rooms, the polished floor of the palace or the earthen texture near the riverbanks, the rock here looked like grey bread dough kneaded and folded and then left so the rolls softened and blended into one another.

  “What has happened here?” Nele wondered, but none of them had an answer.

  The platform sloped upwards at the far end, so Sarra led the others around the room and up towards the doorway, wondering what they would find when they exited.

  Nothing could have prepared her for the vista before them.

  The cavern dwarfed even that containing the Great Lake, being maybe four times its size, stretching away from them far into the distance and to either side to such an extent that for a moment Sarra felt dizzy. She had never been in a place so big, and found it difficult to get used to the perspective. Geve clutched her, and as she glanced over, she had the feeling he felt the same, because he held onto the wall with his other hand, and his jaw had fallen open, his eyes wide.

  She looked back at the view. How could she see? She looked up and realised there were small holes in the roof like the Caelum in the Embers, through which light filtered down to cast the room in a dull, dusty glow. The far end of the room was filled with an enormous pyramid. She knew the shape from childhood mathematic lessons, but had never seen it put to use for buildings. It was difficult to comprehend just how large the structure was, reaching almost to the roof and filling a good two-thirds of the width of the room. What in Arbor’s name was it?

  The floor was littered with small structures and debris, bits of metal, tools, broken pots, strips of cloth, all covered in dust. As in the corridors, paintings filled the walls, old and faded so she had difficulty making them out, but she thought they had probably been brightly coloured once, and would have brought the whole place alive.

  Now, though, it was deserted, so silent that when Nele’s shoe scuffed on loose rock, the noise filled the air and echoed loudly for some time.

  “What is it?” Betune’s whisper rustled around them like the feet of a hundred small creatures.

  “I think it was a city,” Nele said, his voice hushed even though nobody could hear them.

  Geve moved forward to peer over the edge of the platform. “I wonder how long it has been deserted.”

  “It must be hundreds of years,” Nele said. “Maybe thousands.”

  Amabil shivered. “How odd to think of people living here, not far from us. Do you think they lived here at the same time as people lived in the Embers?”

  “I do not know,” Nele said. They had talked long and hard about how and when the Embers had been created. Because the keeping of histories was forbidden, the only record they had was anything that had been handed down orally, and although they had worked out that the Embers had existed for at least twenty generations, they had not been able to decipher exactly when it had begun.

  Sarra felt Geve’s hand slide into hers. They couldn’t afford to waste time staring around. She thought of Comminor marching through the passageways, coming for her, and wasn’t sure if it were that or the cool air that made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

  “Come along,” she said. “Perhaps it is not much further now.”

  Betune guiding the way with the light from the acorn, they walked along the platform and began to descend the steps to the cavern floor.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I

  Orsin wasn’t sure where they were taking him. They had been travelling west for days towards the Forest of Wings – the dark, closely wooded area in west Wulfengar that most people avoided like the pestilence. The road wound around the outside of the forest, apparently as reluctant as people to enter into the shady depths. But the elementals he travelled with came off the road and plunged into the trees, weaving through the tightly-knit t
runks towards the mountains.

  He didn’t care that he didn’t know his destination. At that moment, he felt as if he could have ruled the world. He had the strength of a hundred men, the passion of a hundred lovers, and he burned with a determination he had never felt before.

  What had happened to him? Some small part of his brain remained puzzled over the transformation. He couldn’t quite remember what had occurred in Kettlestan. He had been feasting at the table, wondering where his mother had gone with Hunfrith, and he had been staring into the flame, and then…

  He looked down at himself seated astride a horse, then across at his companions. They did not ride horses. And they were not men. They stood tall as men on horses though, slender and willowy, their forms flickering like candles in a draught as they ran beside him. They were not human, and inside, he turned to ice.

  But even as fear filtered down him, fire ran through his veins and filled him with an intoxicating excitement and power that knocked all other thoughts out of his head. He didn’t care what had happened to him. He liked feeling this way, liked the energy and the power, and he had no desire to go back to being the person he had been before.

  He rode through the night, heading ever west, and reached the edge of the mountains as the sun began to rise. The six fire elementals with him lit up the forest so the entrance to the cave stood out clearly as they neared. He reined in outside, dismounted and tied the horse to a tree.

  Then he followed the elementals into the cave.

  In turned out to be the first of a series of caves and tunnels, leading deeper into the mountains. The air became humid and stifling; sweat soaked his hair and clothing, stung his eyes. Still they went deeper, the elementals’ fiery skin making the crystalline rocks sparkle as they passed from passageway to passageway and cave to cave.

  As the air grew thicker and the walls hot to the touch, they rounded a corner and the passageway opened up to a larger cavern. Orsin stopped, taken aback at the size of it – which was bigger than the Great Hall in Vichton Castle – and the strangeness of its construction. Circular in shape, most of it was filled with a pit of boiling magma that bubbled and spat flecks of scarlet onto the pathway that ran around the edge. The pit led to a river of red that ran through a doorway on the other side of the cavern and disappeared into the distance.

  The intense heat seared his skin and made his hair crisp and his eyebrows shrivel. He gasped, the dry air burning down his gullet, and backed up to the wall, stopping as he felt rock behind his shoulders. He wanted to flee, but equally the molten rock called to him, and part of him wanted to throw himself into its fiery depths and let it consume him. He had always had a fascination for fire, but never anything as intense as this. The need frightened him, and his chest heaved as he fought with himself for a moment, gaze fixed on the thick scarlet and gold viscose liquid that swirled and popped and called him to come.

  Inside him, something twisted, and he grabbed hold of the rough wall as his body shuddered and stiffened. Fear overwhelmed him again and he opened his mouth to cry out, but as he did so his voice refused to come. Instead, burning heat rose inside him, up into his throat, choking him momentarily, and he panicked as he couldn’t breathe, his fingers scrabbling on the rock. He tipped his head back and tried to scream, but instead of sound issuing forth, he vomited a stream of magma that arched over the path towards the pit, disappearing into its fiery depths.

  Orsin dropped to his knees, retching at the feel of the thick, slimy liquid passing through his throat, and gasping as it finally left him and his airways cleared. How was he still alive? And yet although the heat from the pit blasted his face, his insides appeared untouched from the heat of the thing that had possessed him.

  On hands and knees, he watched the fiery stream join the magma pit. He was sure a long sigh filled the cavern, or was it just the wind soughing through the tunnels? The elementals that had accompanied him circled the cavern, taking up places at regular intervals on the path as if waiting, and he stared into the pit, heart pounding at the realisation of what had happened.

  He had been possessed by the Incendi king. He remembered now. That was why he had felt so powerful. Now that the elemental had deserted him, his thoughts remained his own, and his head spun at the knowledge that one of the creatures standing before him had been inside him. It frightened and invigorated him at the same time. What strength, what power! He was almost disappointed it had left him, and yet equally the thought of it entering him made him nauseous.

  As he watched, the pit churned, boiled and then, to Orsin’s alarm, the whole pit reared up before him in a wall of dripping magma.

  He fell back, pressing himself against the wall in fear as the wall hovered in the air, then gradually took the shape of a creature. A long body formed with a flaming tail and wide, wide wings that stretched across the room. It was a firebird, but on a scale Orsin had never seen before – filling the room, the wingspan a hundred feet wide and with eyes of fire that seared his skin as they looked at him.

  The creature beat its wings and moved forward, and the elementals bowed as it passed. Clearly it was their leader, and Orsin’s stomach turned to water as it stopped before him.

  “What are you?” he whispered, the words sounding as insubstantial as a dandelion puff in the wind.

  But the salamander heard him. “I am Pyra, King of the Incendi.” It surveyed him thoughtfully. “Good morning.”

  Orsin blinked. Had the King of the elementals really just exchanged pleasantries with him?

  “Thank you for allowing me the use of your body,” said the King. “It was… an interesting experience.”

  “For me also,” Orsin said, his mouth dry.

  A fiery tongue flicked out, flamed heat onto his skin. “You enjoyed the experience?”

  Orsin cleared his throat. “Maybe enjoyed is the wrong word. But it made me feel…” He thought about how he had felt when the creature had been inside him. Strong, powerful. “Alive,” he finished, puzzling himself with the answer.

  The firebird swept across the room, magma dripping from it and falling into the pit. “You have been a follower of mine for a long time.”

  Orsin frowned. “I am not your follower.”

  “Words do not make it so, but neither can they unmake the truth. Fire has always fascinated you. You have always been drawn to me.”

  Orsin could not deny it. That the element enchanted him, he could not refute. But that did not make him a follower of the Incendi king. That was traitorous talk, and horror filled him at the thought. He loved the Arbor, and although he did not consider himself a religious man and was struggling with his role in life, he did not wish the holy tree harm.

  “I will not betray my people,” he whispered, trying not to think of how he had incinerated a room full of people in Kettlestan, burning forests and cremating animals along the way. It was not me, his mind insisted, but deep down he knew he had enjoyed the power.

  The firebird flicked out its tongue, but did not reply. Instead, after a few moments, it merely said, “Come with me.”

  It turned and beat its wings, floating above the magma to the room beyond. Orsin swallowed, wondering whether to try to flee. But the six elementals hovered around him, and he knew that the moment he tried to escape, they would burn him to a crisp.

  He pushed himself weakly to his feet and lurched along the pathway to the door. He had burns on his arms and legs where flecks of magma had eaten through his clothing; his face felt sore to touch, and his mouth was dry as a desert. But he had no choice, and so he almost fell through the doorway, collapsing onto his knees at the edge of the cavern beyond.

  He stared, his eyes on stalks, unable to believe what he was seeing. The river of magma fed in a wide, deep channel through the room, and the firebird flew above it to the centre. It swooped in a circle to face Orsin, scattering burning fragments across the floor.

  “All this can be yours,” it hissed. “Can you really deny your heart’s desire?”

  T
he room was filled with gold. Coins and objects made from the valuable ore were stacked in huge piles to the ceiling. From doors on either side, fiery figures marched through with more objects that they scattered on the heaps as if they were valueless stones. Obviously the elementals had a fascination for the metal, and as coins ran down the piles and slid into the pit, the firebird dipped its claws in and raised them, letting the discs melt and slip through to mix with the swirling magma.

  Orsin had never seen so much wealth in one place, and his jaw dropped at the King’s words. “Mine?”

  “All this and more.” The firebird raised its wings.

  Before Orsin, the magma pit boiled and a curtain of steam rose from it. And in the steam, pictures formed before his eyes. A huge castle, the size of Vichton and Kettlestan together, with rearing towers, battlements and spires. Outside, its standing army – bigger than Heartwood’s Exercitus had ever been – guarded the castle and prepared for war, weapons shining, armour glinting. The picture moved as if he were a bird floating down on currents from high in the sky, and he descended through an arrow slit to the castle interior, into a sumptuous Great Hall.

  The walls were hung with rich and colourful tapestries, the tables piled high with dishes full of cooked meats and fruit. Every seat was filled, and the mood was that of a celebration, music spiralling in the air along with the smoke from the hearth. Wine flowed, ale spilled, and women danced between the tables, dressed in thin gauze gowns that revealed their curvaceous bodies.

  “Your castle,” the firebird murmured. “All this and more.”