by Ben Peek
‘You sure you don’t want a few of my boys?’ Kal Essa asked. He was sitting beside Heast in the wagon. ‘Lot of bad land between here and Faaisha.’
‘Just some supplies, horses.’ The captain’s steel leg was wedged painfully against the wet boat, but even so, he did not relish the idea of trading the wagon for a mount. ‘You and your men have your orders.’
‘You’re making farmers out of them.’
‘The land cannot look abandoned.’
In the months since Heast had begun purchasing the land, Essa and his soldiers had proved to be more than dependable on the land. Other soldiers – soldiers Heast had both commanded and served beside – would have chafed at the idea of picking up ploughs, of setting aside swords for scythes, and of long, hard days harvesting food they had not planted. But the Brotherhood had done it with no sign of disgust, no hint that they had been given a job that was beneath them, and Heast had been more than satisfied.
The ox came to a halt outside the large farmstead that the mercenary unit had made their home. The scarred mercenary captain dropped from the back of the cart before Heast or Taaira and began giving out orders for supplies to be prepared and for two mounts to be found. Once he had done that, he disappeared into the house and reappeared with two travel-stained leather packs and two swords, one of them a heavy two-handed blade with worn leather around the hilt.
He gave the latter to Kye Taaira.
‘I did not think that even Hollow used swords,’ Heast said.
A worn, thick leather strap held the sword over his back. ‘It is not forbidden,’ the tribesman said. ‘In this case, the weapon belonged to one of my ancestors.’
‘One who left the Plateau?’
‘No, one who ensured they stayed.’
‘Our warlock wanted to bury the sword,’ Essa said. He passed the second, a plain longsword in a leather sheath, to Heast. ‘I’m told he forbade anyone to go near it while we were gone.’
‘A wise choice,’ Taaira admitted.
No more was said of the sword as the two packs were filled and horses led out and saddled and supplied.
The tribesman would have made quicker time without him, Heast knew. In his youth, he had been a capable rider, though he had never owned a horse. In those lean years, the beasts had always been the property of the men and women he worked for, and their deaths had been paid for out of his own pocket. It was a way, he learned early, that some employers used debt to bind you to their service. He had owned horses eventually, but after the loss of his leg, riding had become a chore, and though he had kept the skill, he had not kept the animals. Kye Taaira, in contrast, was a fine rider who enjoyed being in the saddle, and who could have taken a day from the journey if he had ridden at his natural pace – and perhaps another day if he had not suggested that they should wait until the morning to ride through Mireea.
Turning his gaze away from the sun’s cold light, Heast shifted himself stiffly in the saddle and dismounted.
‘I rode through the city on my way here,’ the tribesman said. He stood before his horse, the reins held in his left hand, the morning’s light leaving his hair and beard a burnished red and gold. ‘I had heard that ghosts held rule here, but I had not given it much thought until I saw that the priests who preceded me did not enter the city during the night. Their concern, I thought, was one that had been earned and so I did the same.’
Heast did not argue with him, though he did insist that they ride through the main streets of Mireea, and not skirt the edges as the priests had done. With that agreed upon, the pair made their way along the uneven broken road. Tremors threatened to turn into earthquakes, but neither man responded to the sound, or the occasional shift from a building on either side of them. The tremors had been a constant companion for the last few days, with more than one path ended by a sudden split in the land after the mountain had collapsed on itself. He had heard from both Ayae and Zaifyr that Ger had died during the battle with the Leerans – time, Zaifyr explained, had caught up with the god’s injuries – and that the god would no longer function as the foundation for the mountain.
Heast was not given to philosophical thoughts about the nature of gods – they were dead, simply that – but as he walked along broken roads, passed toppled houses and stood before dark and endless cavernous openings in the streets, for the first time in his life he had a true appreciation of what people would have felt during the War of the Gods.
It was not just an assault against the physical dimensions of the world, but the intellectual ones as well. He passed The Pale House, one of the tallest buildings in the city. Only months had passed since he stood on the roof and directed the battle against the Leerans, but he could have stepped onto the roof from the street, so far sunken into the ground was it. It would never be rebuilt, never be reclaimed. It was lost, and so, really, were all the practices that went on inside it, the support of the men and women for the Mireean Guard, for him. The fundraisers they had held without him ever having to attend. After The Pale House, he passed the markets. In a corner where there had been a small stand and a Faaishan woman had sold sandwiches, there was now stone, punching deep into the ground. Never would he stand there on the final day of a week and eat the roll she gave him, filled with pulled beef and a spicy gravy, and the small bag of chips she cut from potatoes. She was gone. The ritual was gone. Ahead, the Spine’s Keep remained upright, but a part of the mountain it had been built into had fractured, and stone had fallen off it and into the Keep, destroying the corridors he had walked through and rooms he had sat in.
It continued, sight after sight, as the Captain of the Ghosts walked through the city and out into the ravaged mountains.
7.
Inside the carriage, the Queen’s Voice spoke first.
‘When you’re dressed like that, Bueralan Le, no one could mistake you for a servant.’
‘Was I was required to look like one?’ The roof of the carriage was low and he was forced to hunch before he sat himself across from the Voice of the Queen. A moment later, he heard a whip crack. ‘Is it too late for me to go back and get a collar?’
‘What makes you think I don’t have one here for you?’
‘I wouldn’t think of denying you the gold around your neck.’
‘Children.’ The First Queen, Zeala Fe, spoke in a voice disintegrating in illness; but even in her weakness, her voice commanded. She sat in front of Bueralan, wearing a long gown of black, the folds of it hiding her thinness, but hinting at red, as if wounds had opened on her. The macabre nature of it was only further emphasized by the arrangement of her thin hair, which had left it in a translucent shroud about her face. ‘I am headed to the home of my third daughter. She would have both of you murdered for festivities, if she could. I would prefer politeness until we get there.’
‘Forgive me.’ The Queen’s Voice inclined her graceful neck, her face still and composed; but her dark eyes did not leave Bueralan. She wore a gown made from a dark burnt orange, and it had been touched with red at the cut of her neckline and hem, where she wore dark-red flat heels. A single slender red-and-gold chain with a smoked-glass centre – the piece cut from a jar similar to the whole ones in Safeen Re’s house, a piece of rare expense – rested at the top of the smooth curves of her breasts. Around her hands and wrists were red-and-gold bracelets and rings, with chains that made intricate connections with each piece to link her body and gown together. ‘I appear to simply have been carried away in the moment.’
‘My charm.’ He gave a shallow nod of his own. ‘I apologize, my Queen.’
‘You are like your mother,’ she replied drily. ‘She could never call me her Queen without it sounding like an insult, either.’
He could not remember his mother saying such. ‘My apologies,’ he said, again.
‘Just like her.’
The carriage rocked slightly after the Queen’s faint words and the whip cracked again. Bueralan wondered why the driver did not spare it – because of the Queen’s fr
agility, the carriage was never allowed a great speed, and it slowed for any rough patch of ground. There was no point in using a whip on the horses that pulled the carriage.
‘I have a personal question, before we reach my daughter’s party,’ the old woman whispered. ‘That crystal around your neck, the one in your pouch – do you truly believe that it is your blood brother?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not even a hesitation?’
‘Do you hesitate to believe?’ he asked.
The First Queen wore the thinnest necklace of gold, the end of which was lost deep beneath her gown. ‘I do not hesitate to voice my opinion.’ Her hands did not reach for the charm. ‘But your mother never supported it. She said it did more damage to us as a culture than good. I was always told that you shared your mother’s belief.’
‘Once.’ He thought again about the child and saw the way her eyes had held his, eyes that were unlike any he had seen before. ‘After it was given to me in Leera, I thought that I had a chance to right a wrong.’
‘You and Samuel Orlan have that bond.’
She was not asking a question and when Bueralan responded, it was not to her. ‘Yes.’
‘But what of Leera?’ the First Queen asked. ‘Until a month ago, I do not think I ever thought to say the word, but now I hear it frequently in reports.’
‘You will hear it more,’ he said. ‘I do not think that they will stop with their neighbours.’
‘Yes, I have thought as much.’ Beside her, the Queen’s Voice raised a single, fine eyebrow, but remained silent. ‘Tonight, however, there is my daughter’s party,’ the older woman whispered. ‘It will be attended by a foreign diplomat, Mister Le. His name is Usa Dvir.’
Bueralan almost laughed at his fortune. ‘I know him.’
‘I suspected as much,’ she said. ‘Have you worked for him?’
‘The Saan do not hire mercenaries.’ And Usa Dvir was not just a part of the Saan: he was the war scout for the largest tribe, the Dvir. Very little of what happened in the Saan travelled down the wormed tunnels that kept them isolated from the rest of the world, but what had come through was news that the Dvir had conquered the Saan over ten years ago. It held the country together through the strength of its soldiers, but its gaze, unlike other tribes on the Saan, was not internal. ‘I can’t imagine Yoala has much to offer Dvir in marriage.’
‘No, you are wrong.’ She paused as the carriage tilted to the left, gently, then righted itself. ‘My daughter offers Dvir the slave trade of Ooila so that Miat Dvir may tap the wealth of Gogair.’
‘You could end that trade.’ As Bueralan spoke, he was aware of the Queen’s Voice watching him intently. The gold around the tips of her fingers had become a solid twist in her hands. ‘Before the day begins, you could outlaw it and she would have nothing to give to him.’
‘It would be foolish to do so,’ the First Queen said simply. ‘It was such thoughts that led to Illate’s failed revolution. We have all suffered for that and I will not make the same mistake. In the time that I have left, I will push Ooila into stopping the trade, but to outlaw it tonight would merely be to entrench it. The minds of Ooila must be with me as I turn this corner, and they are nearly there. They will be with me even more once I know the names of all the important people here tonight, all the people who support my daughter.’
The saboteur – for that, he knew now, was why he was the First Queen’s companion tonight – understood. He was to collect names, to watch those who kept away from the Queen, to remember who stood beside her daughter. ‘But I can leave you off the list, because you were not invited.’
The First Queen’s laugh was dry. ‘None of us were invited, Mister Le.’
‘We may not leave,’ the Queen’s Voice said. ‘It is a very real possibility.’
Bueralan admitted that it was, but he did not try to argue against the move, or attempt to leave the carriage, for which, he saw, the First Queen patted his knee. She offered him nothing for what he would do tonight – and what he would do, he knew, would depend on her daughter’s response – and when the morning’s sun rose, and the butterflies filled the air, he would have earned no coin and no favours with her. But he would not expect otherwise. If the slave trade was returned to the strength that it had enjoyed before he was born, then Zean would have no station from which to make a life after he was reborn. Much in the way a Queen was always a Queen – even a third daughter who would have to kill her sisters to ascend the throne – a slave was always a slave.
Yoala’s estate appeared on the horizon, lit brightly by a smear of lanterns, an image, at first glance, that appeared as if a million butterflies had caught fire and were frantically trying to flee.
He wished he had brought more than one knife.
8.
Before Pueral reached the ruins, but after she had tethered her horse to a stake in the rocky ground, she wrapped a black cloth over her nose and mouth. The Eyes of the Queen did not do this out of secrecy, though she knew others would have, for the moon sat high and full in the sky, revealing the ground in clear detail by its pale light. Instead, she wrapped the old cloth around her face because she had started to smell sulphur. It came from the shadows of Maalikanos and Beeintor, the large volcanoes that sat on the horizon like ancient monsters. She had been content to ignore the smell at first, but it was growing stronger. She had taken the cloth from the bottom of her horse’s pack before she left the beast, fearing that she would have to use it – fearing because she had not used it for over twenty years and it smelt of leather and food and whatever else had worked its way to the pit of her worn saddlebags. Once she had tied the cloth, she and her soldiers stepped into the ruins that lay before them like broken teeth, rotted and cracked through centuries of neglect.
Pueral did not know the name of the ruins, but she knew that they were old, knew that they reached back to the Five Kingdoms, when Ooila had been Mahga. Children were taught about it in school, but it was not until she had become the Eyes of the Queen that Pueral had learned just how much the old history had been responsible for the creation of Ooila. After she had been given her position, the First Queen had taken her into the basement vaults of her castle, to where a series of paintings were kept. They were ancient, huge pieces that depicted castles of black rock rising from the ground, with silver lining the edges of doors, and their peaks like thickly chimneyed roofs. At the foot of each castle – there were twelve – spilled pools of molten gold, each filled with precious-metalled fish. The First Queen had told Pueral that the painting held the reason why the Five Queens had risen up and taken control of Ooila in their violent revolution.
Pueral had nodded dutifully, but the massive paintings, despite their flaking, the runs of colours in corners, and damage done to the frames, had conveyed only greed to her.
‘What you see is the wealth we lost,’ Zeala Fe had said quietly, mirroring her thoughts with a voice not yet wasted by illness. ‘The Queens wanted it returned, even though the mines were long emptied.’
‘That is why they began the slave trade?’
‘Yes.’
After that day, Pueral had been awakened to the conversations that nobles had about Mahga. She had heard them before, but whereas before she had passed it off as history, now she heard in their voices an emotion similar to the painting in the vaults. They knew not the shape of the kingdom, or what its social structures had been like, but they knew intimately what it entitled them to, and they ignored the consequences of it, just as they ignored their own creations of horror in its name.
Beneath her feet, the paths of the ruins were broken, but the tracks Aela Ren left were clear. Her soldiers had spread out like a fan around her, their hands on their sheathed swords and on the triggers of their crossbows. But Pueral’s mind would not settle on the job. She wondered if the Innocent had chosen these ruins because of the message they imparted. Surely he could not know the meaning they had for her. Nor could Pueral believe that he felt the need to justify his actions.
She forced her mind clear. Ahead of her, the pale light picked out the edge of a roofed building. The trail led towards it and her stomach began to feel hollow with the anticipation of battle. Aela Ren would not be inside the building, she was sure of that: what little cover it provided would pale against the fact that he would have no way to retreat, no way to fight except by charging, and she did not believe, even after the horrific visions on the beach and in the villages, that the Innocent would charge twenty-three seasoned soldiers head on.
He would draw them to the building. He would use it as a lure. He would underestimate her and her soldiers.
He would seek to strike quietly and swiftly as they closed into it.
Yet.
Yet not a single soldier saw a new trail.
Not a single soldier saw the sign of an ambush.
And not a single soldier was attacked.
The building beckoned, the stump of a good tooth in a destroyed mouth. It had been made from black stone, but its shape was long gone, the walls having fallen, the beams rotting. The stone roof remained standing because someone – perhaps Aela Ren, perhaps a bandit – had pushed and pulled the roof back into place on top of the building’s remains.
There was a camp inside, but it was cold. Loosening her sword, Pueral entered.
‘There are no tracks out of here.’ Ae Lanos stepped behind her lightly, his voice soft, but his movements and words echoed to her. ‘If he came here, I do not know how he left.’
‘He was here,’ she said.
Before her were the marks of boots, the same as those in the tree outside Enalan. The two boots circled the cold pit of fire, the ashes not yet solidified. A single stone lay in the centre.
A stone that held a note.
An old friend of mine has arrived, it said, with a friend of new. I regret that our meeting will have to wait.
‘I do not know what this means,’ the tracker said, handing the note back to her. ‘A friend of old, a friend of new? The Innocent does not have friends.’