Dark Embers

by R. L. Giddings

  I instinctively raised my hands, readying a spell.

  “What are you doing?” Edwin asked.

  “I’m just going to frighten it off. Why?” The boar was enormous. What were we supposed to do? Just stand and watch.

  “Not with magic,” he made a vague gesture indicating the air. “Not here. Remember what he said?”

  “What who said?”

  “Macrory. Something to do with earth magic causing real problems out here.”

  “Oh!” that I did recall.

  The boar turned in our direction. For a second, I could have sworn that it was considering rushing us from across the river. Then Macrory started to slip lower causing it to re-focus its attention. He was clutching onto a handful of vestigial branches, his brow crinkling with the effort but they wouldn’t hold him for much longer.

  “Look, we have to do something.”

  Edwin nodded and dropped to one knee. He placed the package on the floor and started to carefully unwrap it. When he had finished I could see the unmistakeable shape of a handgun.

  Millie came through the hedge at that point and saw what he was doing.

  “Where did that come from?” she said.

  Edwin held a finger to his lips for quiet and then carried the pistol down to the edge of the stream. The boar had risen up on its back legs and was rubbing its snout up against the bark of the tree. If Macrory dropped much lower it’d be able to rake him with its tusks.

  Edwin didn’t rush, he took the pistol firmly in both hands before slowly easing back the hammer. Then he raised the cocked weapon, sighting along its barrel. His legs were slightly splayed, as if preparing to kick a field goal.

  Macrory gave a little cry and dropped down even further, low enough for the animal to get its teeth around one of his shoes and start wrenching it back and forth.

  Edwin took careful aim.

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Macrory yelled. “Just shoot it!”

  Edwin straightened, rolled his shoulders and then dropped back into a crouch. He took a deep breath and re-adjusted his aim. Then he calmly squeezed the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  “Safety catch?” I suggested.

  Edwin let out a short sigh and thumbed the safety to ‘off.’ All the time, his eyes never left the boar.

  The animal somehow seemed to sense him. It dropped its forelegs to the ground, Macrory’s shoe sticking out of its mouth. It regarded us while it chewed.

  The first shot cut a smoky path across the animal’s ribs. The boar brought its snout around and fixed us with an enormous smile, its twin tusks yellow and gleaming

  Then it charged.

  It was perhaps twenty metres away but it was closing the distance down very quickly, splashing through the shallow waters.

  Edwin fired again, and the top half of the animal’s shoulder exploded in a spray of mud and blood, a large section of flesh swinging away. Still the animal kept on coming, bounding across the centre of the stream on short stubby legs.

  Millie and I retreated back to the hedge but Edwin stayed where he was. He appeared to be having a problem with the gun.

  As the boar came out of the water it dropped its head, preparing for the impact.

  Edwin’s third, thunderous shot missed completely. I don’t think he even had the chance to aim it. It seemed to just go off in his hands.

  I didn’t think about what I was doing but I didn’t panic either. The animal was charging at Edwin, not me. I experienced a moment of exquisite calm as I focussed. Had, indeed, never felt such an overwhelming sense of assurance.

  The boar thundered into Edwin at speed, crashing into his legs before tossing him into the air.

  I couldn’t let that distract me. I had to quickly calculate where the animal was about to be not where it was.

  Edwin was still in the air when I released the spell.

  Nothing fancy. A simple percussion job was guaranteed to blow the animals ear-drums. To startle it. Nothing more.

  So, I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

  One moment it was there, the next moment, it wasn’t. Dissolved into a huge pink cloud.

  The boar had simply exploded.

  I felt rags of wet flesh hitting my head and shoulders. Coils of internal organs were strewn all across the clearing. Bits of pig fat spattered down around us.

  Edwin was lying on the ground, clutching his right leg, completely covered in a film of blood.

  “What just happened?”

  *

  “We can’t move him.”

  Millie had examined Edwin’s ankle as thoroughly as she could with him passed out on the floor. I’d watched in horror as she’d inched up his trouser leg to reveal the injury. The bone above his ankle had snapped with fragments of bone piercing through the skin, the foot hanging down. The odd thing was that there was no bleeding, his entire lower leg looked to have been carved from wax.

  I took off my jacket, folded it over and positioned it under Edwin’s foot. Millie took care as she lowered his leg onto it but he still flinched with the pain.

  Everything about his leg looked wrong.

  “So, it’s definitely broken then?” Macrory sounded disappointed.

  Millie shot him a look. “Yes. You can see for yourself. Broken.”

  “Look, we’re going to have to move him,” I said, trying to gauge the fading light.

  If we left it much longer we’d be tripping over one another in the dark. There was no way he could stay where he was: in the mud.

  The others didn’t say anything. They just positioned themselves around Edwin and prepared to lift. We couldn’t leave him where he was, if the water level rose in the night he would simply drown.

  We made him as comfortable as we could and then set about determining our next move.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  We had to go and get help. While there was no question of moving him, it was obvious that Edwin needed urgent medical attention. I wasn’t sure what the quality of medical care was like in the capital but it was obvious that we weren’t going to be able to get him there ourselves.

  It was agreed that Millie should stay behind with Edwin while Macrory accompanied me into the city. Once we’d sorted out some help for Edwin we planned to make our way to the palace, though Macrory was sceptical about us gaining access to the queen. Our only hope, it seemed, was to try and exploit the greed of the courtiers by posing as wealthy foreign traders.

  We approached the city from the West from where he could best appreciate its innovative construction. The city was built on four huge rock shelves, which jutted straight out of the rock face, providing wonderful views of the valley below. Each section was partitioned off with a latticework of highly ornate gates which combined solidity with exquisite design. The great Dandelion Tower dominated the skyline, looking down on a jumble of roofs, domes and turrets as building pressed up against building. The tower itself was something of an enigma. Its construction was unlike anything I’d seen before. It could have been built four years ago or four thousand, its design had a timeless quality which set it apart from the rest of the city. The palace couldn’t help but suffer by comparison, constructed of a series of domes which looked to have more in common with Byzantine rather than European architecture.

  The city was vast by any standards and had to contain hundreds of thousands of residents. It wasn’t until we approached the gates that I started to question the legitimacy of our plan. How many of the populace would have petitioned to seek an audience with the queen? How many merchants would attempt to appeal to her over some legal matter? How long could they reasonably expect to wait before their audience was granted?

  I supposed that, like everywhere else, it depended on how much power the individual wielded.

  I wasn’t even sure that we’d be able to gain admittance through the city gate. I was relying completely on Macrory to navigate us through that particular problem. Doubts started to crowd in on me then. For all that I had gone through, for
all my defiance, what hope did I have of bartering with a queen; particularly a mad queen? Macrory had warned me of this when we’d first embarked on this whole undertaking and now I was starting to wonder whether he’d been right. Could I have gone through all of this for nothing?

  My plan made no sense. Any attempt to use Sigurdsil to garner some advantage over the queen would be met with the strongest resistance. I had already seen the forces that she was capable of mustering. The Harvesters themselves were a sure sign of the depth of Sidhe magic. Did I think that she would mount such an impressive invasion force and then neglect her own safety? Even if I was capable of smuggling Sigurdsil into her inner court what could I hope to achieve other than to frighten her into a massive over-reaction? If Macrory was to be believed, she had refrained from visiting our world precisely because of the threat the knife posed to her. To see it in the hands of a potential enemy, within the sanctity of her own court, she would surely assume that I was an assassin and respond accordingly.

  Her guards would not hesitate to protect her while my pleas for mercy would fall on deaf ears.

  On reflection, Florian’s plan had been the very height of simplicity: use the failure of his mission as a way of granting intimate access to the queen. Fool her into believing that, because of his recent disgrace, she had the upper hand before turning the knife on her himself.

  *

  Getting into the city was easier than I’d expected.

  We ran into the back of a caravan of musicians, each one as extravagantly dressed as the next. While we couldn’t work out what language they were speaking, they were friendly enough and became even friendlier when Macrory produced a handful of polished enamel pieces. He used these to trade for some of their clothes. I got a wrap-around shawl and he got a waistcoat and a hat that looked like a birthday cake. They were eager to trade for more items but Macrory was keen not to draw too much attention and politely declined. The musicians started playing while we waited to be admitted and, by the time we had passed under the archway, they’d worked through the bulk of their repertoire and were starting to repeat themselves. No one so much as looked at us as we proceeded through the main gate. We waited until we were passing through a side street and then quietly slipped away. We stood side by side in a narrow alleyway and listened as the caravan faded into the distance.

  “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  And I struck out across the cobbles.

  “What’s the plan?” he was a little out of breath by the time he’d caught up with me. “Swing by the palace, get our bearings and then find an inn where we can rest up?”

  “We haven’t got the time. Not with Edwin in his condition.”

  “I know, but they’re not going to let us into the palace at this late hour. We’re going to have to wait until morning.”

  “No, I’m done with waiting. I need to see the queen and I need to see her now.”

  Macrory grabbed hold of me by both arms.

  “Absolutely not, storming in there right now is a guaranteed way of getting us both killed. There are protocols to be observed. I mean, this is the queen we’re talking about.”

  “The same queen who intends to let loose those Harvesters upon mankind. The one that you said was quite mad? That queen?”

  “I’m not defending her. I’m just saying that we have to tread carefully. What good are we to anyone if we get ourselves killed?”

  I calmed down a little after that. Ever since we had entered the city, I had been thinking of all the things that could go wrong. It might have happened back at the main gate, or the first time someone addressed me in Arcadian. I was a stranger in this place and the longer we stayed the greater the likelihood was of me being found out. It wouldn’t do to get arrested now. Especially now that I was so close to seeing Silas again.

  “Alright,” I said. “I admit, I’m a little over-anxious. I just want to get everything sorted. But you’re right. We can’t just go barging in there demanding to see the queen.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So what do we do?”

  *

  The inn was everything I hoped it would be, managing somehow to be both sleazy and sophisticated. Macrory had gone off on some mission, leaving me with strict instructions not to talk to anyone. I waited.

  Three large chandeliers provided what little illumination there was. Looking at them, I was reminded of Daniel Cardoza’s house, although while his chandeliers were gleaming and new, these were old and chic. They looked like they’d been snatched from a 19th Century French brothel, an effect that was further enhanced by the fact that there was an Imp sitting astride one of them.

  I’d never seen an Imp before, but then, I’d never seen any number of the creatures who frequented this place.

  The barman was a heavily muscled satyr who treated his customers with thinly veiled contempt. From the waist up he could have passed as a human, he even had a tragically hairy back which no amount of waxing would ever fully resolve. But then, when he left the bar area to go and get a fresh wine barrel, I got a good look at his legs. These were pure goat, complete with cloven hooves, although it was his hugely muscled buttocks which caught my attention most. He was so heavily developed back there that it was a wonder that he could walk at all.

  Macrory banged two goblets of wine down in front of me and told me that it was rude to stare. But it was impossible not to stare. We were surrounded by some of the most striking individuals I had ever seen. They all appeared to be in the bloom of youth, their bodies either long and lithe or tanned and muscular; their clothing cut to accentuate these physical attributes. The men wore breeches with white stockings which accentuated the swell of their calves along with linen shirts open to the waist. One or two of the men had had their shirt sleeves removed in order to better display their arms. The women wore dresses and gowns of the most gorgeous, shimmering colours which would have shamed most fashion houses. On the table next to us, a woman sat in a sky blue gown complete with little white puffs of slowly drifting clouds. Round her throat, she wore a choker of the most exquisite pearls. Various maidens moved between the tables taking orders and re-filling glasses. They had the untrammelled beauty of teenagers but spoke as if they’d spent a lifetime working on the docks.

  I took a sip of my wine. “Where did you disappear off to, anyway?”

  He sat down looking smug. “I’ve just been sorting out Edwin’s leg.”

  “In here? How did you manage that?”

  “There was a bit of an altercation over in the back. A maester who couldn’t pay his bar bill. I offered to settle his debts and give him a bonus on top if he’d agree to go and treat Edwin’s leg.”

  My sense of relief was tempered with a great degree of scepticism.

  “What’s a maester doing in here, anyway?”

  “Getting drunk by the looks of it.”

  “A drunken maester? How do you know you can trust him?”

  Macrory leaned forward. “Firstly, he took the money…”

  “But he’s a drunk.”

  Macrory held out his hand.

  “And secondly, I took this.”

  He opened his fingers to reveal a big, greasy ring. The raised seal worn so thin it was impossible to read.

  “That’s a proper maester’s ring that is. Here feel.”

  It was surprisingly heavy.

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “He can’t practice without it. As a result, he’d do anything to get it back. So, when he wakes up tomorrow morning and thinks about double-crossing me, he’ll realise his ring is gone and…”

  “He’ll have to re-evaluate. If he doesn’t tend to Edwin he doesn’t get his ring back. Clever. Is this how all business dealings are conducted in Arcadia?”

  “Pretty much.”

  I was distracted by a bare breasted mermaid swinging from a trapeze overhead. She sang a haunting ballad accompanied by a flame haired woman on the harp. It was one of the most unusual things I’d ever heard yet the
customers talked over it as if they didn’t care.

  I don’t know whether it was the audience’s blatant disregard for her singing or my relief at the thought of Edwin back in the forest, but I felt tears of anger and hurt clouding my eyes.

  “Are you alright?” Macrory asked.

  He was nestling his wine against his stomach. Having done his good deed for the day, he seemed much calmer.

  “I’m fine, yes,” I indicated the room. “Don’t you miss living here?”

  “Every day. It used to be the most wonderful place but, ever since the Winter Queen started taking liberties, it’s not been the same. There’s something missing here, an emptiness at the heart of the place that no amount of surface gloss can disguise.”

  “Can I ask you a personal question, then?” I’d had quite a lot of wine by this point and was beyond caring. I indicated the other revellers. “You’re a thoroughbred member of the Sidhe. Were you like this lot, when you were younger?”

  “You forget yourself. I’m a sprite. There’s a difference. But, if you mean was I gorgeous, then I couldn’t possibly comment. You’ll just have to judge for yourself.”

  He pointed towards the staircase. I looked across, but couldn’t see what he was pointing at.

  “Over there,” he said. “On the wall.”

  There were three individual portraits: a male and two females.

  The women would have made Helen of Troy look dowdy. The man was sitting on a wooden chair, elbow braced on the arm, fist tucked under his chin. He was looking directly at the viewer, challenging them somehow.

  “Oh my God!” I said with a sudden realisation. “Is that’s you?”

  It was Macrory’s turn to cry now, nodding through the tears.

  *

  There was a hot tub out the back which writhed with countless naked bodies. There were no changing facilities, those people who were currently enjoying the waters had simply slipped out of their clothes, draping them over chairs or simply abandoning them on the ground. With as little fuss as possible, I discarded my traveling clothes and picked up a dress. It seemed about the right size so I slipped it on. At the same time, Macrory was slipping on breeches and stockings. Everything was too long for him so he had to roll them up.