Ash and Silver

by Carol Berg

A smile softened her worry lines, a rich, sweet sadness flowing from her like a spiced tisane. “’Tis not magic, but what we are. What I am. It’s why I could not stay with thee in Montesard. It’s why I could never stay with thee, no matter the delight we shared in those days or our childish whimsies of abandoning families and traditions and making a life together. It’s why I must answer to Tuari and not thy commanders or kings. Though we share the same form, gentle Lucian, I am not human.”

  Not human. Wordless, breathless, I nodded.

  My intellect had spoken it from the moment I saw the portrait. Spirit had disagreed; she was so vibrant, so womanly, her emotions and expressions so recognizably . . . human. Now, surrounded by woodland and meadow, her gards taking fire again as daylight failed, my spirit, too, believed. She was no human’s sister or daughter or lover. She was lightning.

  “Trust me. I mean only thy good, and I’ll do all I can to protect thee from Tuari’s wrath. But we must pry open thy memory, else matters will become very difficult for us both.”

  Robbed of answer, I motioned her onward. But as her long limbs devoured the steep slope ahead of us, I stayed close and kept my eyes open.

  “So then, at least tell me where you’re taking me to get my memory pried open and how you think to accomplish it,” I said. Perhaps her kind had their own sorcerers.

  “We’re to join my partner, Naari. He suggested a way to crack this mud clot. His plan seems well reasoned, if a bit . . . risky. ’Tis more likely a stick will break the clot than a feather, yes?”

  My blood rushed hot as if the tide horns had sounded. “What stick? I’m trusting you—”

  She pointed to the horizon. “Atop those twinned hills lies a spring in a mossy crevice. When we ascend the next slope, we shall look down on the great city men name Palinur.”

  “Palinur! The royal city? That’s not possible!”

  Of course she had just told me how it was possible. But it would take an inordinate amount of faith to accept that we had walked from the Western Sea in the far northwest of Navronne to Palinur in the kingdom’s heart in half a day. “You’re saying we’ve walked more than seven hundred quellae! And without glimpsing so much as a plowed field.”

  She shrugged. “We have walked the true lands, where measuring has no meaning. And my kind do not plow any more than they build. As I told thee, time spends differently here, which means we must hurry on if we’re to get thee back to do thy duty.”

  And so we continued. It was unnerving, at best, to contemplate what stick awaited me from beings who could drag me across Navronne in a day’s walking.

  • • •

  The city that sprawled across the grassy hills was indeed great Caedmon’s city—the royal city of Navronne. Neither its massive size, the thousand flickering lights, nor the clashing bronze of so many bells sounding the quarters had convinced me. The grand gates and thick walls might have belonged to any number of northern cities, and I told myself the dead vineyards might once have harbored some hardy northern grape and not the exquisite vintages of the Ardran hills. But as we crossed the great roads that funneled mobs of travelers into the city, threading a path through hostlers, food vendors, bawling taverners, scurrying pickthieves, and smirking procurers who thrust half-dressed girls and youths into our paths, I knew it must be Palinur. Only Navronne’s greatest city would be so alive and so wicked, so late.

  I had refreshed the obscuré spell on my mask, and Morgan—her Danae light hidden under bodice and skirts—had pulled up the hood of her cape, so none paid us mind as we hurried along the ring road outside the city walls. Though she’d indicated that our destination lay on the “sunrise side” of the city, we passed up the calmer easterly gates just as we had the chaotic southern portal.

  Morgan adamantly refused to say how they thought to make me remember.

  Neither of us said much. The long day wore on me, and once past the gates, a profound stillness fell on the road. We encountered no travelers, no vendors, nor even the beggars’ village one might expect outside any city’s walls. No stock pens accounted for the foul wind coming down from the north.

  Watchfires atop the city wall illuminated scorch marks, stains, pits, and gouges in its smooth face. The ground itself was broken and pitted, too. Here and there the cart road squeezed through heaps of rubble or circumnavigated some gaping pit or a pile of tar-splattered beams and metal—telltales of Bayard’s fruitless siege two years’ past. This destruction would be but a dusty corner of history compared to what might come now Bayard had allied with Sila Diaglou.

  My legs expressed their gratitude when a steep portion of the looping track at last reached more level ground. My lungs would have, as well, save that the foul stench I’d noticed earlier was ten times worse on the windy flat.

  Morgan didn’t slow. She left the road and headed toward the gray strip of the city wall that had climbed the same hill, only in a straighter path. Watchfires marked the wall’s bend around this high plateau before straightening again on its northward course.

  “Come on,” she said over her shoulder. “We’re looking for a gap in this wall.”

  But I stayed behind, squinting into the patchy night.

  The cart road had split, the main branch servicing the once impressive gatehouse to a walled compound—a temple perhaps. The siege had crumbled the top half of one gate tower and knocked holes here and there in the compound’s wall. But stone cauldrons flanking the gatehouse blazed with wind-wild flames, illuminating the undamaged statues of two gods grappling—Deunor, Lord of Light and Magic, and Magrog the Tormentor, Lord of the Underworld.

  “What is this place?” I said softly, though Morgan was well out of hearing by now. Familiarity teased at me, like a strand of hair flapping against my cheek. I had been here since my change. As I’d never traveled so far from Evanide, I must have been here on that first confused journey to the fortress. Yet even to consider what place it might be set off warning thunder in my head. Which meant that this was a part of my past, as well. Was that how Morgan thought to make me remember? To shatter my skull?

  The lesser branch of the cart road extended into the blackness east of the compound—the side away from the city—most likely to service a side gate or postern. The worst of the stench came from that direction. Horribly fascinated, I continued straight on toward the source of the stink, using my body to shield a soft magelight from any watchers inside the compound.

  Quiet clicks and rustling, and soft whapping sounds slowed my steps as I reached the rim of the plateau and looked down. Tatters and scraps of rotted leather and linen fluttered in the wind amid piles of . . . bones. Goddess Mother preserve! At my feet lay a hillside of skulls and bones, heaps and piles of them, most picked clean by crows or the scuttering creatures whose eyes gleamed in my light. Here and there someone had thrown dirt on more solid remains, for some were not so old as the others. Had I not seen people at the city gates, I would have thought the entire population of Palinur lay dead on that hillside.

  Scritching feet or wind set a skull rocking—a skull half-cleaved through by axe or blade.

  Hair rose on my neck. The brutality of combat was near surety in an eques cineré’s future and such a sight could not but feed the doubts grown so large these past days. How could I aspire to such a life?

  Yet this display was Prince Bayard’s doing and Sila Diaglou’s and surely that of the weak-livered Perryn, as well. The weapons the Order provided to the cause of right were extraordinary, and despite my novice faults, I knew I was good at what my masters taught me—both magic and war. And if I was suited to such skills, how could I refuse the call to use them? Someone had to stand in the way of tyrants and fools.

  Had I not known better, I would have said Inek had brought me here instead of Morgan. Morgan . . . First things first.

  I doused my light and retraced my steps.

  “Over here,” she called softly.

/>   I joined her at the verge of the road.

  “I thought I’d lost thee,” she said, as we hiked across a lumpy field.

  “I need to know why you’ve brought me to this cursed place.”

  “Soon enough.”

  We squeezed through a narrow opening in the thick city wall. Massive bars of iron and wood were set into the mortar—enchanted in place—making it impossible for beast or armored soldier to squeeze through. Beyond the narrow gate a twisting footpath plunged steeply into a dark tangle of scrub that stank of sewage and sodden ashes. The foul wind rustled new-leafed trees.

  Before I could demand better answers, Morgan lifted her head and cupped her mouth. “Yai! Yai! Yai!”

  The rapid biting cry mimed that of a white-tailed eagle.

  An answering cry came from the trees below—along with the shimmering of blue fire. Danae.

  Fingers ready on my bracelets, I backed away from her. “What have you done?”

  She raised her hand to stay my flight. “No, no. This is Naari, my partner, come to help. We shared the watch on thee after we left Montesard. He more than I. We’ll not approach Tuari till thou’rt ready.”

  The Dané who climbed up from the tangled darkness was tall and well-made, his sinews taut, his long hair caught in a braid. Every quat of his flesh, even his privy parts, were scribed with drawings of light. A white-tailed eagle wrapped his pale brow, sculpted cheek, and long neck, as if drawn in ink compounded from sapphires. He smelled of rosemary.

  Chilly eyes took stock of me as he left the steep path. “I didn’t think he’d come. Our last meeting was not so friendly.”

  Unlike the structures beyond the wall, naught of this Dané felt familiar.

  “He has agreed to answer to Tuari, as I told thee he would.” Morgan touched the Dané’s arm. “Envisia seru, Naari.”

  “’Tis delight to see thee, as well, sweet Morgan.” His expression warmed.

  My magelight caught Morgan’s smile. Brilliant, intimate. Foolish that it should cause such a tightness in my chest. I didn’t know her. They were not human.

  Naari jerked his head my way. “Is it shame makes them hide their faces?”

  “Custom, not shame,” she said. The last of her smile vanished. “Hast thou word from Tuari?”

  “Not yet, though the night suggests he is on his way. Our source is in place. Shall I trick the man to come out or show thee where he plies his watch?”

  “What man? Source of what?” All I could think of were the thousands rotting on the hillside. Surely no one lived in this cursed place.

  “Show us,” said Morgan, eager. “Thou’rt certain he’s the one?”

  “Certain.” Naari pointed through the gate back toward the temple or whatever it was. “Every nightfall he comes out and prowls round the outside. Then he retreats, fixes a lock on his gate, and kindles a fire just within. He fancies himself the night lord of this dead ruin.”

  “If we’re to learn secrets, we need Tuari delayed,” said Morgan. “Wilt thou venture it, Naari?”

  “He’ll not hold long, but for thee I’ll try.” Naari touched Morgan’s cheek, then gestured the two of us toward the gate and dissolved into the night.

  As I yet gaped in wonder, Morgan took my hand. “Come, Lucian. We’re off to find thy remembrance.”

  We moved swiftly back across the muddy field toward the gatehouse. An orange speck glimmered behind the spiked iron bars of the gate.

  “Who’s in there? A priest? A diviner? A sorcerer?”

  I reached to catch her arm, but she swept onward with all the force of Evanide’s tides. So I matched her stride for stride, trying to slow her with words. “You must understand, lady, no common magic can change what was done to me.”

  “We’ve no idea what kind of person waits behind that gate. Nor if he knows aught of magic. But he knows thee. In the winter before thou didst make a home in the sea fortress, ’twas thy habit to frequent this place of death. After only a few days, thou didst vanish, and for a long while, we thought thee dead, too. I was near lost in grieving. But then thy magic manifested stronger and more intrusive than ever, and Tuari sent Naari back to find thee. Naari watched this man fetch thee back here from the city, bound, muted, and ill. And ever after, he—the one who waits yonder—kept thee in rags and chained. He is thy enemy.”

  “Chained?” I had been a prisoner? Here? That fit no pattern I understood. Pureblood sorcerers were not kept prisoner save in the Registry Tower, and I could not even state an explicit reason that might be so. The most terrible crimes—treason, kin-murder, using magic for murder, torture, or rape—reaped swift execution.

  You are not a murderer. The fragment the Order had given me sounded a fragile reassurance.

  Lesser crimes were settled by swift punishments—whipping or public humiliation—and unrestricted contracts. . . .

  My feet kept moving over the rough ground, while I worked to create order from throbbing chaos. If I reached too deep, the pain in my head would put me beyond reason, but Inek had revealed something of my last contract.

  A place of death, Morgan had called this compound. What if it was no execution ground, but rather a necropolis, a city of the dead? Its size, the crowded roofs and pinnacles outlined above the compound wall, would make it the principal burial ground of Palinur. I had been a man of wealth, the Order had told me, a pureblood fallen on hard times and contracted to a necropolis. They’d not told me I’d been kept in chains. Madmen might be kept chained. Great Deunor preserve!

  “We thought confronting thy enemy might jolt thy reason,” said Morgan with soft urgency. “He’s not like to recognize thee, fully masked and changed as thou art. And even if the memories we need remain hidden to thee, he might know these things.”

  “Yes. Questioning could be useful.”

  Nothing in me could confirm that I had once lived here. And I had no naive imagining that laying eyes on a person—even a hated jailer—would undo the magic that blocked my memory, but I could surely squeeze out some information.

  “We can restrain him, if need be. But a story might get us past his gate. Travelers lost?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ll do this. Just follow my lead.”

  After two years with the Equites Cineré, I was not the same man who’d been kept prisoner here, but I knew a great deal about his world. Indeed from the moment we’d sighted Palinur’s walls, the truths, habits, and understanding of pureblood life, which for two years had seemed as remote as information read only in a book, had infused me like new bones.

  Few men were bold enough, skilled enough, or vicious enough to chain and mute a pureblood. Either this man waiting was pureblood himself—which these vile surroundings made ludicrous—or he was a bold, devilishly wicked, and dangerous kind of ordinary. A contract for a madman’s services would be quite inexpensive if one had stone walls to confine him and some use for his particular magic.

  We halted a dozen paces from the gate. The fire from the stone bowls lit a brass plate above the arch. It read NECROPOLIS CATON.

  “Who’s out there?” The challenge from inside the gatehouse rang so loud it could have waked the bones on his hillside. “If ye think to rob the dead, be assured ’tis already done.”

  “We’re no grave robbers,” I said, masking everything but pureblood hauteur. “I am a traveler passing through this city with my maidservant. We’ve had an unfortunate incident on the road. I wish to know if this place can provide proper grave rites for a pureblood.”

  “Pureblood rites? In the middle of the night? And so I must let you inside—in these times?” The bellowing laughter threatened to bring down the rest of the broken gate tower. “That’s the damnedest ruse I’ve heard since a lackwit constable demanded to inspect the tombs, claiming Harrowers had taken up residence inside them. ’Tis almost enough to let you in just to see what kind of lackwit you ar
e.”

  A touch of my left bracelet snapped the lock on his gate. A second in quick succession exploded a bouquet of five cold torches waiting in an iron cask into flame. My boot’s harsh impact swung the iron gates open.

  “Bring a torch, Fanula,” I said, giving Morgan a gentle nudge. “The good man will show us in or find his gatehouse crumbled on top of him.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Morgan played her part to perfection, dipping her knee and fetching a torch.

  A thickset fellow waited just inside the necropolis gates, behind a flaming brazier. Steady, thick-fingered hands held a well-maintained sword at the ready. He’d once been a soldier, I guessed; his stance was expert. Though his height did not top my own, the breadth of his solid chest, shoulders, and arms would lend significant weight to his blows. I would not count him out in a test of arms alone. As for his nature . . . a tangle of wiry, sand-colored hair and beard, threaded with gray, left his features unreadable, save for a pair of eyes that burned with the same heat and color as his fire.

  For certain, he was no pureblood. Not only was his hair entirely un-Aurellian and his garb laughably unfit for Registry standards, but the only magics anywhere close were my own. A brittle emptiness where I would expect threads of magic suggested the compound had been stripped clean of enchantment at some time not so long past.

  “I am no lackwit, ordinary, but neither am I overzealous.” I opened my arms in largesse. “The times are unsettled and the hour late. Sheath your weapon, and I shall overlook this impudent violation.” To draw on a pureblood was to beg a hangman’s attentions.

  He lowered the sword, but did not sheath it and did not relax his posture. Morgan remained near the gate as I encroached farther on his demesne.

  “You’ve violations of your own that might draw interest, pureblood,” he said. The hot eyes flicked from me to Morgan and back again. “No proper cloak . . . and a most unusual mask. No brocade, no pearl buttons, no jewels, no escort save a fair young woman who wears no mask. Sneaking about in the night. A man might almost think you were . . . ordinary. Or hiding. Or renegade.”