The Legion of Flame

by Anthony Ryan

  “Much can happen in two thousand years,” Kriz said, appearing at his side. From the smile on her lips it was clear she was enjoying his amazement.

  “What is this?” he said, gesturing at the oval-shaped room. “A cable-car?”

  “No.” She frowned, clearly struggling with an explanation, then shrugged. “You’ll see soon enough.”

  The sound of laughter drew their gaze to the front of the room where a tall man and a little girl stood watching the city pass by below. They were both dressed in clothing that resembled the garb Kriz had found in the armoury, the white fabric contrasting with the darkness of their skin. Clay knew instantly they were father and daughter. It was there in the tall man’s gaze, the pride in his eyes and the indulgent smile on his lips as the girl pressed both hands to the glass.

  “So many people, Father,” she said. “I didn’t know there were so many in all the world.”

  The tall man hesitated before playing an affectionate hand through the girl’s short-cropped hair. When he spoke Clay heard Kriz murmur the words in unison, “So many people, Krizelle. And none so special as you.”

  The room shifted then, Clay’s stomach lurching a little as whatever carried them aloft began to descend. It was less alarming than riding on Lutharon’s back but still disconcerting. He saw buildings and walkways slide past the windows, as the craft banked then levelled out. The little girl squealed and jumped in excitement at the sight of another building looming ahead, the tallest one yet.

  The tall man placed a calming hand on the girl’s small shoulder, crouching to meet her gaze, his expression intent. “Do you remember what I told you, Krizelle?” he asked her, provoking a roll of her eyes.

  “Don’t speak unless directly questioned,” she said, her tone rich in the bored annoyance of a child repeating a frequent lesson. “Do not lie, do not exaggerate, demonstrate only as instructed. There will be ignorant and angry people, ignore them.”

  “Very good.” The tall man cupped her cheek and Clay saw how he strove to conceal his trepidation behind a confident grin. “This will all be over soon. Then we’ll get to go home.”

  The little girl gave an aggrieved pout. “But I want to see the city.”

  “You will.” The tall man pulled her into a brief embrace then took her hand, rising to regard the tall building which now filled the window. “But only for a little while.”

  For a time it seemed they were about to collide with the building, but the speed of their approach soon slowed. The craft carrying them gently descended towards a circular platform extending from the tall building’s sloping flank. A slight bump indicated they had come to rest.

  “Come along now,” the tall man said, clasping his daughter’s hand tighter as unseen hands levered open a hatch in the floor. A ladder was hoisted into place and the two of them duly climbed out, Kriz and Clay following close behind.

  Once clear of the ladder Clay turned around and backed away, looking up to find a large bulbous object obscuring his view of the sky. He was obliged to retreat a good distance before gaining a full view of the craft. A two-deck gondola was fixed by means of a dense mesh of ropes below a large ovacular balloon. Protruding from either side of the gondola were two mechanicals, the rear of which was fitted with what appeared to be three-bladed fans. Clay immediately recalled Lizanne’s trance memory of the propelling mechanism she witnessed in Morsvale harbour. That had been used to push a ship through the ocean so it seemed reasonable to assume these would push this thing through the air.

  “So your people have no aerostats,” Kriz observed, reading his expression.

  “Heard of balloons being used to carry folk aloft,” he replied. “Seen pictures in books and such. Nothing like this though.”

  “It was a recent innovation, truth be told,” she said, glancing back at the craft before turning her gaze towards the little girl and her father. “One of many, in fact.”

  The pair were being greeted by a small delegation, all older people wearing more elaborate garb than Clay had seen before. There was a robe-like formality to the clothing that told him these were people of some importance, a fact confirmed by the sudden deference evident in the posture of the girl’s father.

  “Were they your Board?” Clay asked Kriz, drawing a bemused frown. “The folk in charge,” he elaborated. “Y’know, like a government.”

  “In charge?” she mused, starting forward as the delegation concluded their greeting and led the little girl and her father into the building. “Sadly, yes they were very much in charge.”

  They entered the building through a tall pointed arch, proceeding along a wide corridor to a huge tiered chamber. It had a flat circular centre which gave way to a series of wide terraces which ascended to form a great bowl. There were a great many people sitting or standing on the terraces, with more crowding the flat space in the centre. The air was filled with a loud growl of energised conversation, all of which came to an abrupt end when Krizelle and her father followed the delegation into the chamber.

  Kriz abruptly froze the memory, Clay turning to find her standing with her arms crossed tight over her chest, eyes closed. “Something wrong?” he asked.

  For a second she said nothing, then murmured, “Don’t you think it’s a curse sometimes? This . . . thing we can do. Every memory lingering in your head, ready to be played out in all its detail. Aren’t there things you’d rather forget?”

  “Sure. Then there are memories I never want to lose. That’s just what happens when you live a life.”

  Clay resisted the urge to encourage her to restart the memory. Although he worried over how much Blue they had left, he also sensed she needed a moment to steel herself for whatever she was about to show him. Biting down on his impatience, he scanned the chamber, eyes roving over all the statue-like figures and finding a peculiar absence. No guards, he realised. These people were all dressed much the same as the greeting party, though the colours varied and some were much more elaborate. What struck him as most odd, however, was that no two people were dressed alike.

  “No uniforms,” he murmured. “No guards. No need for a Protectorate here, I guess.”

  “Protectorate?” Kriz enquired, the trance communicating her puzzlement at the concept.

  “Army, police, soldiers. Folk employed to keep the peace, defend this place.”

  “Ah.” She nodded in understanding. “We’d fought our last war decades before then. Not long before this city was first constructed. The world beyond this continent might still be steeped in tribalism and savagery, but here peace is the norm. However . . .” Her face darkened as she scanned the crowd and her gaze came to rest on one figure in particular, a thin woman of middling years dressed in the plainest robe of any present. “Unfortunately, we had yet to shrug off the lingering taint of superstition.”

  Clay noted how the thin woman’s frozen features were set in an odd expression, somewhere between a disdain and hunger as she stared at the little girl clutching her father’s hand and staring at the surrounding assembly with fearful eyes.

  Kriz unfroze the memory, the thin woman’s strident voice cutting through the silence a half-second later. “So,” she said, shifting her narrowed eyes from the girl to her father, “Philos Zembi finally deigns to answer our summons.”

  “I received a request, not a summons,” Krizelle’s father replied in a carefully mild tone. “And I came as soon as I was able.”

  “Ah yes,” the woman replied, her own tone much less civil, “you are so busy crafting fresh horrors in that mountain fortress of yours.”

  “The Philos Enclave is not a fortress, nor is it mine,” Zembi replied, Clay seeing how he struggled to keep any animosity from his voice and bearing. “And I fail to see how the many gifts arising from the science practised there could be considered horrifying. Why, the very building we stand in could never have been constructed without the engineering genius of the
great Philos Menzah, founder of the Enclave.”

  “Brick and stone,” the woman replied, her voice rising as her gaze snapped back to Kriz, “not flesh and blood to be stolen and twisted into something that offends the very sight of the Divine Benefactors.”

  “This child has not been twisted into anything,” Zembi said, a certain heat creeping into his voice. “Merely nurtured, educated and the gifts she possesses studied.”

  “Gifts?” The thin woman grated out a humourless laugh. “You talk as if she merely has the ability to compose a tune or paint a pretty picture. In truth”—she raised a bony arm to point at Krizelle—“it is no exaggeration to say she could kill every soul in this assembly if the whim took her.”

  “Devos Zarhi,” a new voice cut in, deep and pitched just below a boom. Clay turned to see a stocky, barrel-chested man emerge from the crowd. He wore a grey-blue robe with short sleeves that revealed thickly muscled arms. Noting his straight-backed bearing and the way the surrounding people made way for him, Clay suspected that he might be the leader here, or at least capable of commanding the most respect.

  “This assembly,” the stocky man said, lowering his voice a little though it still easily filled the chamber, “is a venue for calm reflection and reasoned decision. Philos Zembi has done us the courtesy of responding to our request. And so”—the stocky man smiled at Krizelle—“has this young lady. I bid you Welcome, Krizelle. Your presence honours us greatly.”

  Devos Zarhi gave a loud huff at this but remained quiet as the stocky man came forward, sinking to his haunches in front of Krizelle. “I am Veros Harzeh, Speaker of the Chamber,” he said. “I believe you have prepared a demonstration for us.”

  Krizelle raised her small face to her father, Zembi squeezing her hand with an encouraging smile before reaching into a pocket in his robe to extract two objects. “I assume all present possess a basic familiarity with crystalline science,” he said, raising his voice and holding up one of the objects, a small crystal little larger than a pebble. “Even the smallest shard gifted to us by the Event is incredibly dense and contains more internal facets than can be counted with the naked eye. Although they have enabled us to craft great works, the true nature of the power they hold still eludes us. But now”—he turned a fond smile on Krizelle—“providence and science have combined to provide us with the key to unlocking their secrets.”

  He held out the second object to her, a small glass bottle containing a viscous and instantly recognisable substance. “Black?” Clay said, glancing at Kriz and finding her attention entirely absorbed by the unfolding scene.

  Krizelle hesitated before reaching out a small hand to take the bottle, removing the glass stopper and drinking the contents. Her face flushed as she swallowed, staggering a little as the product took hold. She straightened quickly and nodded at Zembi, features set in a frown of concentration.

  Zembi reached out his hand, the pebble-sized crystal resting in his palm, and gave what Clay thought to be a pause of overly theatrical length before abruptly turning his hand over. The crystal fell several inches then stopped, freezing in mid air as Krizelle reached out to seize it with her Black.

  From the vast gasp that filled the chamber, and the subsequent explosion of amazed chatter, Clay deduced this was the first time the vast majority of these people had ever witnessed such a thing.

  A small ticking sound drew his gaze back to the crystal, seeing it shudder as Kriz modified her stream of Black. It gave another tick as a new facet appeared in its surface, quickly followed by two more. The crystal abruptly expanded to twice its previous size, new facets appearing so fast it was as if the stone blurred. The ticking sound grew into a continual almost melodic accompaniment to the crystal’s transformation. It grew to a fist-sized ball then flattened into a disc, the edges of which began to bow outwards then subdivide into thin overlapping shapes. An irregular cylinder grew from beneath the main body of the crystal, extending for several inches before resolving itself into what was clearly some kind of plant stem, complete with thorns. The ticking sound stopped as Krizelle reduced her Black to a thin stream, letting the newly made crystal rose spin slowly in the air.

  Clay gaped at the spectacle. It was the most accomplished and detailed use of Black he had ever seen, outshining even the murderous precision of the dread Black Bildon, the famously skilled assassin from the Blinds.

  “Well . . .” he breathed, turning back to Kriz. “That was surely something.”

  She gave no reaction, instead watching the assembly’s reaction. Clay saw amazement, fear and delight on many a face and, in the singular case of Devos Zarhi, naked outrage. Her eyes seemed to glitter as she stared at Krizelle and hissed something through tightly clenched teeth. The words were lost amidst the continuing babble, but he doubted it was anything pleasant.

  “You were the first,” Clay said to Kriz, laughing in realisation. “The first ever Blood-blessed.”

  “No,” she whispered back, a tear swelling in her eye as she looked upon her younger self, “I was the first abomination.”

  CHAPTER 45

  Lizanne

  “Scorazin wasn’t yours to give!” The Electress hunched in her saddle, broad features taking on a dark red hue as Dropsy shifted beneath her, perhaps sensing her mistress’s growing rage. “Now I have to bargain with a bunch of horse-shagging savages just to buy back a city that’s mine by right.”

  “They’re gone,” Lizanne replied, meeting Atalina’s gaze and speaking in a placid, unrepentant tone. “The threat is removed, without bloodshed I might add.”

  “She has a fair point,” Arberus said. He sat atop his own horse close by, a squad of mounted Brotherhood guards at his back. Lizanne had noticed he never went anywhere without an escort now, as did the Electress. “An intact horse clan with no unsettled blood-feud will be more inclined to join us after Corvus falls,” Arberus continued. “It’s time we started looking to the future.”

  The Electress glared at Lizanne a moment longer then slowly straightened, calming Dropsy with a scratch to her ears. She turned to regard the Corvus Road stretching out ahead, a near-straight line of gravel fringed by untended fields, empty all the way to the horizon. “You’re lucky I still have need of you, dear,” she muttered before kicking Dropsy into motion. “Don’t forget our agreement,” she added, starting up the road with her body-guard of Furies following close behind.

  Arberus guided his horse close to Lizanne’s and they sat in silence for a time, watching the People’s Freedom Army pass along the road. Varkash’s command were first in the marching order, moving in tidy companies now. The uniformity of dress adopted by the Wise Fools in Scorazin had been modified into something that resembled military order, though they still felt obliged to tear the sleeves from the captured uniforms they wore.

  “Sentiment?” Arberus asked after a lengthy silence.

  They had children. Lizanne left the thought unsaid. Honesty was another thing they no longer shared.

  “What was it?” Arberus pressed, apparently undaunted by her silence. “The agreement you struck with her?”

  “Just another murder.” Lizanne stroked her heels along the grey stallion’s flanks, spurring him to a walk. “What else?”

  • • •

  The country grew more populous the closer they drew to Corvus, outlying towns yielding ever more recruits. Local militias either melted away or summarily executed magistrates and senior constables before proclaiming loyalty to the revolution and falling into line. Organised opposition flared intermittently, Imperial officers marshalling hastily assembled loyalists in order to block the road. Some were little more than poorly armed groups of nobles and Imperial functionaries and tended to flee at the first sight of Tinkerer’s rockets. Others were much more formidable, usually formed around a hard core of cavalry officers whose troopers were proving to be the least likely conscripts to switch sides. These formations were also more numero
us, some numbering close to ten thousand troops and volunteers and requiring an organised assault before being overcome or set to flight. The fighting could be fierce, those with the most to lose in the impending fall of the old regime proving capable of desperate resistance. But numbers always told in the end. By the time Corvus appeared on the horizon the People’s Freedom Army counted over two hundred thousand souls in its ranks, and an unbroken line of victories at its back.

  “Fires are burning out of control in several districts,” Korian reported to the army council after returning from a reconnaissance to the capital. “Though most of the actual rioting seems to have died down. In the aftermath the city divided itself into warring factions. As you might expect the richer the neighbourhood the more likely it is to remain loyal to the crown.”

  He turned to the map of Corvus spread out on the Electress’s desk, his finger making a circular motion around the outer suburbs. “We’ve managed to make contact with Brotherhood agents in most of the outlying slums. We’re confident they’ll join us when the army enters the capital. They’re lacking arms and ammunition but so are the loyalists.” His finger moved to the central districts, hovering over the Imperial Sanctum. “There were some initial attempts to storm the Sanctum when the riots broke out, all bloody disasters. It appears the Blood Imperial has gathered every Blood Cadre operative he can to defend the heart of the empire. In addition, our agents estimate Countess Sefka has between six and ten thousand troops, all well supplied with artillery. Added to that”—his finger moved east to where six large crosses had been pencilled within the confines of the Corvus harbour—“there are two Imperial cruisers and three destroyers at anchor and most of the city is within range of their guns. We can thank the Arradsian disaster there aren’t more.”

  “Quite a formidable knot,” the Electress mused, tapping a stubby finger to her chin before turning to Arberus. “Untangle it for us, will you, General?”