only this time it was aimed in the opposite direction. She withdrew one of her hot gale swords, filled it with white fire, and stepped into the swirling mess.
The curious walls of this New Gialdin were mirroring the spring sun’s
brilliance as no other surface ever had. At least, none that he’d seen in his many years of existence. Artemi was younger than he by a few thousand years, of course, though the difference was too subtle for anyone else to see. Tallyn, or The Hunter as books liked to call him, turned his leading spin dagger over in his hand and threw it at one of the walls. Impossible walls! The blade bounced off ineffectively and skittered across the floor. He crouched to pick it up and examine it. For the first time in its four-thousand year history, the tip had been blunted. He would have to see Artemi to get it fixed.
She was, however, currently unavailable. Ever since she’d returned from her curious trip to.... to wherever she’d gone, she’d worn a very odd smile. After leaving him with an armful of bandits to dispatch! And now, only ten days later, she had locked herself away from everyone. It seemed curiously like the behaviour of someone suffering nalka. Tallyn always could smell when something was not as it should be, and burn him if he wasn’t going to sniff out the truth!
He re-sheathed the weapon, tightened his red scarf and stepped into the golden light of the hallways. They
were a venture into a strange land, alright, but warm enough to keep him from thinking of his home in Fury Point. And this was a vast improvement on that gloomy, dank cave that had been Cadra. Tallyn began whistling as he walked, listening to the oddly timed echoes that bounced back at him. When he reached the general’s door he nodded to Talia, who had been posted there to guard it. She returned the greeting respectfully, touching the hilt of her sword. The Kusuru strode straight into Silar’s rooms without announcing himself, and was struck by the scene of domesticity before him.
Kalad was balanced on the general’s knee, and the other two children sat at his desk, scribbling down notes. The Hunter’s namesake was going through that awkward half-man, half-boy stage that the elder Tallyn knew only too well. The daughter already had the beauty of her mother, and he tried not to stare too much at her.
“...And if the army had only four-hundred men, how would you arrange them?” the general asked in his characteristically self-satisfied voice.
“A column on each side, horsemen at the front and wielders at
the back!” both green-eyed children said in unison.
“Very good,” Silar nodded with approval. “Now-” he broke off as he noticed the Kusuru’s presence.
The Calbeni man offered him a polite nod. “I would speak to you if I could.”
“I have my hands full at the moment, as you may be able to observe.”
Tallyn stood his ground. If he spoke again, the general would probably employ his usual trick of pretending not to understand the Calben accent.
Kalad pointed at him and said something that sounded like, “Dark light man.”
Silar pulled a faint frown, but demonstrated enough maturity not to have a full argument in front of the children. “Fine.” He placed the toddler into the elder son’s arms and stood to join his visitor. “Follow me.” The general led him to a sitting room with vast windows and shut the intervening doors. He folded his arms. “Artemi is fine. She’ll see you in a few days.”
“Don’t treat me like a child; I’m old enough to know a case of nalka when I see it. Explain.”
The general released a sigh and dropped onto one of the blue velvet chairs. “She saw Morghiad, or a shadow of him. And no, I don’t know how. It’s just what I can read from her. It’s the only explanation.”
“Right.” Tallyn planted himself on the opposite chair. It was almost as extravagant as the blond man’s clothing. “A dead man. That is a brilliant explanation!”
Silar scoffed. “You can talk! Besides, she is not like us. Odd things happen around her.”
“So she found him, took him to her bed and then left him?”
He raised a pale eyebrow. “Yes. Anything else you want to know?”
“I want to know what gives you the privilege to make these pronouncements and assumptions about my girl.”
The general spluttered, “Your girl?”
“I’ve known her longer than anyone here.” Tallyn’s anger was rousing in spite of his efforts to contain it. “And the way you prance about playing father is disgusting.”
Silar stood up, the irritation in his voice clear. He struggled to keep his tones low. “Someone has to! Morghiad
asked me to, and don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same! I’d do anything for that woman and her children and, believe me, things will turn out worse if I don’t.”
Tallyn was seething. “A child raising children, that’s what you are! Tell me, how many times have you done this before?”
“You seem to be forgetting their father was a similar age,” Silar hissed.
“He was different.”
Their argument fell into silence. True, it was a shame her husband had so carelessly lost his life, even if he had good reason. Tallyn had almost grown
to like the moody, brooding lumper. At length he spoke, “You should let me help. I’ve raised a few batches of my own through the ages.” All gone now, of course, and they had existed long before his years as a Kusuru. Vanhasielu outlived everyone. “Maybe it will allow you some more time to spend with Talia.”
“Bloody – enough about Talia!” Silar hissed through his teeth. “Artemi would have requested that you help with looking after the children anyway. Come to think of it... how did you... with other women?” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I mean... you love her, right?”
Tallyn grinned a small grin. That particular secret was his to keep. “You know that’s your problem alone, surely?”
The general grimaced. “And I know where you’re going next. She won’t be happy about it, I can tell you that. Best to leave her be. But you’re not going to listen to me, are you?”
“No.” Tallyn waited while the general made his peculiar, Calidellian nod of politeness and waved for him to exit. The people of this country did have strange manners, which seemed to be almost as mocking as they were
reverent. He strode from the extravagantly decorated room and back into the glittering halls. Artemi’s guards would probably try to prevent him from entering her rooms without her specific invitation. He could attempt to scale the outer walls, but would risk falling several miles to a messy death. Further, he didn’t trust the slippery, non-Blaze structure in the slightest. The guards wouldn’t present much of a problem if he tried to fight them, but he didn’t wish to shed any blood. Blazes, he’d just have to come up with a good lie.
He presented himself
courteously at the doors to her apartments and put on his most winning smile. “The lady has requested to see me on a matter of great importance.”
An old fighter with strange hair folded his arms. “Really? She hasn’t left the rooms all day, nor have any messengers visited her to carry such a request.”
Tallyn tightened his smile considerably. “Our kind have other ways of communicating. She gave me her signal. Besides, aren’t you even a little curious to know the health of our queen after she has been hidden for so
long?”
Pavon, as Tallyn believed him to be, sighed and stood back. “It’s not as if I can stop you. Make sure she’s alright.”
The Hunter proffered him a Calidellian sort of nod and pushed open one of the white, filigree doors. He stepped into the high-ceilinged anteroom and took a breath of the fresh air within. These were beautiful rooms indeed, with blue-gold striations that crept up the walls and gently curving arches of white crystal. He shut the door quietly before proceeding into the main bedroom. It was surprisingly
tidy, and demonstrated very little evidence of the man who’d once occupied it alongside his queen. Evidently she had been just as ruthless in dealing with her sorrow as s
he was with her enemies.
In the middle of a large bed, on her hands and knees, was Artemi. A light, crumpled sheet covered her nakedness as she panted breathlessly through her pain. Her fine, wild hair was a knotted and feral mane about her head. It was as if someone had finally allowed the real Fireblade to be free of society’s constraints, and the woman he saw before him was the truth
beneath that pretty mask of obstinate kindness. Tallyn couldn’t help but find the scene strangely arousing. Her dark eyes flashed at him. “This is...” she took a breath, “...not somethingI invited you to witness.”
He sat on a plain-looking armchair and removed both his gale swords. “No, indeed. But you shouldn’t be alone.”
Her deep, dark eyes flared at him once more. It was the memory of her eyes that had stayed with him through the ages. The perfect breasts and the hips and the rest of it meant nothing but sex in the end. Teasing her about those assets meant very little, really. It was the eyes that owned him so completely. “So it was him then? You found him?”
She drew a few sharp breaths before speaking, “This is a private matter. Get OUT!” She threw a warning dagger at him, but he caught it from the air and retained his seated position.
“Tem, it is clear that you could not bring him back. Tell me what happened. We have always told each other everything, haven’t we? Tell me this thing, please?”
Artemi groaned. “Must it be
now?”
“Yes.”
She flopped onto her side and tried to arrange herself in a position that made her more comfortable, but the scowl on her face remained. Tallyn went to place some pillows around her, and her death looks only darkened.
“I’ll get a hot towel. It’ll help.” He walked back into the antechamber and found the appropriate item, before dunking it in scalding-hot water. That the stuff was pumped all the way up here was another one of the palace’s impossibilities. He wrung it twice and walked back to her. “Here.”
Artemi’s glare lessened a touch as she took the towel under her sheets to press against her stomach. She seemed to relax at the feel of it. “He’s alive, just not here.”
“Where, then?”
She closed her eyes briefly. “When I was growing up in-” she paused to take a breath. “-in The Crux. Achellon, if you like...”
He grunted. She had mentioned it the week before, and he had heard whispers of something similar from Gialdin’s citizens. Trust his girl to get herself thrown out of paradise.
Calidell’s queen continued, “...A
Law-keeper told me that all around
The Crux are worlds with different
levels of fire. This one is The
Darkworld.”
Tallyn’s brow creased. “But there is plenty of fire here.”
Artemi laughed a strained laugh. “Yes, there is. And there are other worlds far darker than this one. But all these worlds live in the same space. They share the same energy, and they exist... within one another.”
“I see...”
She shifted around to relieve her pain. “So The Crux is just the centre. But, elsewhere is everything else.
There are other possibilities, other events and occurrences that can happen. And these exist beside us, but we cannot see them. You’ve had visions before, haven’t you?”
He nodded slowly. Only two. One had been about The Heart, another about a former wife.
“And you met those strange people, the ones who step into the bodies of people you know... people you’ll listen to.”
“Yes.” One of them had been Artemi: a very beautiful, naked Artemi, covered in syrup. I am who you need me to be.
“I am not sure if they are the ones trying to guide those possibilities, or if they are just strange manifestations of the possibilities we see... as if our own minds are trying to tell us something. But I do know that one decision here means a different decision has been made elsewhere. And I went to that elsewhere.” She paused to take a few breaths. “I landed in a place where the old Gialdin still existed, along with my husband.”
He considered her words for a moment, not entirely sure if they made sense. “You mean to say there is another me? Another Artemi?”
She nodded wearily. “And no doubt there are places where we never existed. As you can understand, I couldn’t take him from the other me.”
“But you bedded him? Blazes, Tem, that was brazen!”
Artemi mustered another grin. “She wasn’t there to stick knives in my back.”
Tallyn laughed heartily. “That would be a fight I’d pay good money to
see.”
Her smile faded a little. “You
know, it was odd. He was the same
man and yet... he was different.” He shrugged. “That is to be
expected, surely?”
Artemi shook her head. “You and I are the same in each life. Our upbringings change us very little.”
“We are the sum of many lives, Tem. And you know as well as I do that those memories are still there, even when we’re too young to know or understand them. I’ve always thought they bounce around everywhere after we die, waiting to find a head to fit in. It’s only when we’re twenty-three that they finally find a home. Your man only had one life to remember.”
She smiled. “That is an interesting way to describe it. I think I
preferred this world’s Morghiad – I mean, I love them both – but, even though mine had been so damaged...”
“Well, you seem to appreciate damaged things.” Tallyn said. Countries as well as people. In the past, if there was ever a country facing civil war, he could usually guarantee Artemi was in there somewhere. She had a peculiar urge to fix everything. “One day you may have to fix the world. This world, at least.”
She rolled her dark eyes. “I have children to concern myself with now.” Her last word croaked as another bolt of pain took her breath.
“This is serious, more important even than they are.”
Artemi forced herself up and hissed, “You are beginning to sound like the bloody Law-keepers!”
“The ones from Ach- ah, The Crux? What did they say?”
The dishevelled queen grimaced. “They had some stupid idea about saving their own sorry selves. They thought The Crux would burn out, and that someone in my line would be generous enough to undo it! Morghiad was their bloody saviour – he dragged them from their prison - and some thanks he received!”
Tallyn raised an eyebrow. “Clearly you still have a purpose.”
“Me? No, you misunderstand. It had to be someone in my line, a descendent born of their cretinous breeding rules. It was nonsense anyway. Just an old bit of ideology handed down so that they could keep control.”
“Are you not of your line?”
A strange sort of growl came from the back of her throat. “I trained to keep order and justice, Tal. A sentinel in charge of other sentinels, yes. But don’t tell me you believe this ‘saving the world’ nonsense! Such
ideas are precisely what killed my husband!”
He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “A woman who fights like no other, a blazed goddess with unsurpassed powers is walking this Earth, and you are asking me to believe that she is not special?”
“I am a widow and a mother and an exile. There are thousands of women out there like me. The rest is irrelevant.”
Tallyn spluttered a guffaw.
Her fierce eyes returned. “And what about Mirel? Vestuna said it could be her. She may be mad and black
hearted, but she has always believed she is doing right by the world. And, if you want to believe these prophecies, perhaps she has good reason. Some of them said I would be the cause of the end, not the cure.”
Tallyn sat back and rubbed his jaw. Some stubble had formed along it, which he disliked. Its pale colour tended to make him look rather wizened. “So you don’t believe in prophecies anymore, and you think visions are arbitrary?”
“Since Morghiad died for nothin
g. Yes.”
He nodded. “So you will allow
Mirel to lead us all?”
“You wouldn’t be that stupid,” she spat.
“If you give up and leave, there may be no choice.” He watched her drained features for a moment, but did not regret his words. He had to make her believe again. The Daisain had been overzealous and cruel, but he had also been right about many things. There was something about Morghiad that reminded Tallyn of The Daisain. It was a sort of premature wisdom, or perhaps the unerring intensity. He pushed it from his mind. “I’ll stay here until you’re better. You shouldn’t be
alone.”
“You risk my reputation. I will not have...” She took a sharp breath. “...I will not have my castle believe I am sleeping with my friends only a year after my husband has died. You must go and tell the world that I am fine.”
He folded his arms. “Then let me send Sindra... or your daughter?”
The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle Page 116