Salvation's Fire

by Justina Robson

  “Kinslayer slayer!” he roared and everyone looked over, not knowing whether they’d laugh or prostrate themselves. Starich grinned as he sat up, though he wasn’t mocking, only challenging a little, testing the family makeup in case he was going to be living among enemies within.

  Celestaine straightened her back. Then his horse moved and she saw who he’d been talking to—a distinguished older man with a tousled mane of dark hair marked at the temples with thick silvering. He was dressed in a rather new set of tunic and trews made in the Fernreame colours, his hand placed confidently upon the horse’s rein as if he were engaging a grandson in a kindly natter, though Starich was no grandson of his.

  “Shit,” she said under her breath. It was the reinvented sober and serious hero of ‘All Black and Silver Fire He Came’ himself; Deffo.

  THE WEDDING WENT off without a hitch, ceremonies managed, words said, troths pledged and ribbons knotted. Guardians passing themselves off as old men were indulged with songs and a nice seat at a good table. Celestaine did her bit, spoke to various family members in a civil manner, attempted and failed to talk about anything other than the death of the Kinslayer and whether or not Deffo really had delivered the coup de grace.

  “I honestly don’t recall seeing him there, but it was very confusing,” she repeated an infinite number of times, wondering at her own mercy and privately vowing to make him pay because clearly all the interest and the effusive conversation were down to his constant stoking of that particular fire.

  Although she was aware of many whispers and rumours flying about things didn’t turn bad until much later in the afternoon. As soon as she was able she made her excuses and checked on the whereabouts of the others. Ralas was still strumming and singing near the groom’s table, though he was starting to look grey with exhaustion. Deffo was reclining regally amid a cluster of older women, being fed custard tart and mead: she could only imagine what tales he was telling and had to restrain herself from striding over to tip his table and its contents all over him and his doting admirers whilst shouting, “He bit Wall on the ankle!” She took a route that went past the privies and then skirted around through the stables and the rear yard into the orchard.

  There she found Heno and Nedlam sharing a feast platter of roast meat and several jugs of wine. Nedlam was lying on her back, mouth covered in grease, chewing a suspiciously long-lasting bit of something that Celestaine sniffed out as ora, a root which was quite poisonous to humans but which Yorughan found deliciously intoxicating. Wall’s hammer lay in the crook of her arm, the haft twined with Brigand’s Glory flowers in imitation of a bridal stave.

  “Riddle-me-ree…” The song, sung from the stables, made her wonder if she’d been followed, but then the place was full of mildly intoxicated servants going about their duties. Everyone had been included in the celebrations. She could just make out the sounds of ‘The Blade of Castle Mourn’ starting up again from the musicians stationed with the warrior party of Starich’s at their pavilions on the Lamb Field. She shook off her worries as Heno stood to greet her and she took the wine flagon and drank a few swallows from it.

  “Your onerous duties are done?” He was less drunk than he appeared, dressed for travelling, only his coat on the grass.

  “Yes,” she hugged him and looked down at Nedlam’s idle, grinning face, her eyes dark with drug. “Is she going to be able to move?”

  “Married,” Nedlam said, fondly patting the hammer. “Wine, meat, celebration! See. We have civil… civil… got good.”

  “All we have to do is wait for Ralas and we can go,” Celestaine said with relief.

  But Ralas did not come for some time and by then the wine had gone to her head and made her sleepy. Very sleepy. After a while of sitting, she snuggled against Heno’s chest and traced the line of his tusk with her forefinger before twining some of the strands of his silver beard around and around as he snored quietly, the cherry blossom just beginning to snow gently around them. And then it occurred to her that maybe Ralas was too late and she was more tired than she should be for a few glugs of home wine.

  She tried to sit up and found it extremely difficult. Her vision kept blurring. Her limbs were slow, as if in water. Her sense of balance wavered. She jabbed Heno sharply, if clumsily. “Hey! Hey! Wake up! We’ve been p-poisoned!”

  “My wife,” Nedlam said, grasping the hammer on her second try.

  “Heno!” Celestaine thumped him on the chest from her sitting position. Snow was falling faster now and there was a man there, two, no three of them, or six, or three, standing armed with axes. One of them was the priest Starich’s retinue had brought so that the wedding could be blessed by the Gracious One, their chosen deity. He was young and blustery, shaking, she thought, as he pointed a finger down at them.

  “There they are, as I said! See the ora root has them in its grasp already. Strike now! They are the reason for the gods’ turning away from us! These filthy animals from the black pits of Nydarrow are everywhere in this Forinthi hellhole! They have corrupted even the best of us—”

  Celestaine felt vaguely that this might mean her as she hauled on a half inch of Heno’s moustache and just about tore it out. He woke with a roar of protest and floundered for a second as a fourth, or eighth, human male appeared and said loudly, “Stand back! What is this? Who defiles our celebration?”

  Celestaine recognised Starich’s voice and then saw a flutter of peach and white beside him and two Caradwyns, both pale and shocked, her deathly pallor suddenly rendered eldritch by a flash of white and blue lightning that went zapping over her head and into the nearest tree, cracking a branch and showering them all with a blizzard of petals.

  “No!” Celestaine shoved down Heno’s hand as another ball of soft white light began to form in his cupped palm. The magic singed her fingers. She blinked, trying to clear her vision as the priest ranted.

  “These Yoggs here have corrupted the Slayer. They are the ones who cut off the gods. They must be sacrificed to appease the Gracious One, here, where is he, that Guardian, the Undefeated. He shall witness our virtue! He shall report back our righteous justice and entreat their return!” There was some scuffling and confusion and in a less portentous tone, “But where has he gone to? He told me. He distinctly told me that Wanderer had news of the gods, knew where they were. Here we can get their attention, bring them to us again. There’s so much to do. So much healing and reparation. We can’t manage it alone. They must come back. They must.”

  “Hold your tongue,” Starich said. “Have you put ora in all this food? And given it to them?”

  “I thought it was safer,” the priest said. “Now you can deal fairly with them for their crimes. They are subdued and the Slayer cannot protect them with her misguided sentiments.”

  Caradwyn cleared her throat and spoke over Starich as he began to speak, “As it is my wedding day I request safe passage for Celestaine and her party across our lands. Until the sun sets.”

  There was no talk of there not being crimes to answer for or who had done what, Celestaine noted, feeling pain lance across her forehead as she finally managed to get her feet under her and stand up, weaving from side to side. There was only a stony silence and some shuffling as everyone waited for Starich to make his first edict in favour of his priest or his wife.

  Into this moment Nedlam chose to get to her feet. There was a visible effort among the warriors not to back off. She towered over them as she rested the head of her hammer on the ground and thumped it once, gently, a thump felt in every boot sole. She looked at the priest. “Kinslayer took them. Far far away.” She looked at Celestaine, who struggled to stay upright and found Heno at her side, steadier than she now he was conscious, his fingers tingling on her arm with suppressed fire.

  The priest, unable to hold his peace, broke in. “Abominations! Lying, lying filthy abominations! Look at them. Right under our noses. In the woods, in the valleys, creeping up on us in a never-ending tide of death and blood.” He pointed his finger at Ned
lam. “And this one, she, the mockery of good-women on this day, she—”

  Nedlam picked up the hammer and swung it lightly as though swatting a wasp. It hit him in the midriff with a surprisingly soft crump and then he was flying through the air to the side of them all, limbs loose, until his back hit a tree, followed by his head. He slid to the grass and toppled over.

  “It Lady Wall to you, son,” she said, and held the hammer fast in both colossal hands. Then she looked at Starich with great acuity for someone who had had so much ora.

  Celestaine had begun to recover her wits though Heno was holding her up by her elbow on one side. “We’ll be going, then,” she said.

  “Until sunset,” Starich managed to get out in his deepest tones, making a short, sharp gesture at his axemen who showed no hesitation in withdrawing. He glanced at Caradwyn with a mixture of feelings, none certain. “Make your goodbyes quickly or they will not reach the border.” He spared a look for the priest and added, “He was the son of one of my second aunts and not beloved but even so there will be a lot of—trouble— explaining this. I hear you have a sharp wit. Now would be the moment to show it.”

  He gave Celestaine a look and shook his head, giving up on it all. “We will preserve your good name in legend, whatever you do with it elsewhere. You are always at home here, though I think it would be wise to let time turn memories fonder before you return.” Without waiting for a response the new Lord of Fernreame swept out, muttering to his men.

  “Tell Ralas,” Celestaine slurred to Caradwyn who was flushed and relieved, but also with a look on her face that Celest knew meant goodbye without saying it. “Thank you, Cara.”

  “My pleasure,” she said and reached out to touch Heno on the arm briefly. “Look after my cousin. She has a short temper and trusts no one.”

  Heno snorted. “I have my hands full.”

  Nedlam chuckled. “I take the rest of this root wine?”

  “Just leave it if you would, I may need to use it when I find out what befell our priest. I um… may have to clean up two messes with one mop. As it were.” And she looked at Celestaine significantly.

  “Means ‘no’,” Heno growled in translation for Nedlam’s benefit as Celestaine bent forwards and threw up, splashing red wine vomit all over the pretty hand-stitched lace of Caradwyn’s hems. She paused there, to gather herself and found a dainty kerchief handed to her. She blotted her mouth and nose, cleared her throat and as she felt a little better straightened up again, thoughts swirling. Oh yes. The dead Yoggs in the wood. How convenient. But this was Deffo’s fault. Shooting his mouth off left, right and centre, begging for fame, longing for his moment. Then a weak young man with justified fears got wind of it and heard that silly song and maybe heard about the incident yesterday too. She’d have her own reckoning with Deffo when the time came.

  “Goodbye Celestaine, Heno. Lady Wall.” Caradwyn dropped Nedlam a deep curtsey and then, on an impulse, handed over the bridal posy that still swung from a ribbon on her wrist.

  Nedlam took it between thumb and forefinger and examined it from a few angles before sniffing it and then handing it to Celestaine. “You have it. You only girl here not married.”

  When Celestaine looked back Caradwyn was gone. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Afterwards, once they were on the road and making good miles, Celestaine looked but never found the posy and always wondered if she had hallucinated that part of things. The kerchief she had in her pocket, stained forever. So that bit at least had been real.

  CHAPTER THREE

  "HEY, HEY!” BUKHAM looked around for something light to throw but came up only with an apple which he considered too hard for the task. He had to settle for shaking his fist at the mud-coloured little girl who had snatched beans from the edge of his stall. His shout, he noticed, had also gotten a little less convincing over the last couple of weeks. He stood and watched her from behind the multicoloured piles of his produce.

  She scampered quickly to shelter around the other side of the market’s stock fence, standing carelessly between the steers as they swished flies in the heat and swung their massive, horned heads. Each head was almost as big as she was. She watched Bukham closely as she popped beans with her thumb and ate them, one, two, three at a time, always three. The long green and purple pods went into the idly chewing mouths of the cattle, one, two, three.

  Bukham met her eye as long as was possible, trying to frown, before it became too foolish and the desire to laugh unstoppable. Then he had to turn away and sort out some gourds on the other side of the stand. He’d lately become a good sorter, he noticed, his designs for the vegetables growing more elaborate and impressive as the days of thieving passed. It was strange what god wandered in to teach you and what instruments she found, he thought, and then looked up as his uncle appeared.

  Ghurbat was a tall, powerful Oerni whose muscle and markings set him out as a cut above the ordinary. He looked past Bukham to the cattle pen, scowling as he searched for a glimpse of the bean stealer. “The time’s come to send her back. Can’t have this going on. Bad for trade to have thieves around.”

  Bukham looked around, feeling himself as dumb and stupid as one of the steers, as clumsy, as he stalled for time. The pen was empty of little girls. “I do chase her off. She’s only tiny, doesn’t take much.” He turned back and met Ghurbat’s flat stare, knowing all he was doing was sealing his fate as the last nephew to inherit the book. He looked, sadly, at Ghurbat’s waist where the leatherbound scrips of all their family trade records were wound, thick and prosperous, full of promise. But she was only tiny. And coloured like mud and dung because she was covered in mud and dung. And alone.

  It was difficult to imagine what that was like. Bukham was the last of a large, extended family, at least half of whom lived here in the trading post. Someone was always within shouting distance. There was food at someone’s house, water organised by the women, a good meal at the end of every day—too good, in fact, because Oerni hated waste even more than thieving and there weren’t enough Wayfarers in residence to soak up the surplus. They were all sturdy.

  “We could…” he began, meaning to say they could take her in but Ghurbat saw this coming a mile off and put his hand up before Bukham could go on.

  “Your kindness does you credit but no. She has people somewhere. She must go back to the Communes. They will take care of her. Blood and trade, she is of their kind.”

  There was sense to that, Bukham realised. She was no Oerni, much too slight and with that very black hair that matted easily and looked like it was carrying half the twigs and thorns between Taib Post and Caracu in the southern limits of Tzarkand, where she probably came from, before that had been razed by the Kinslayer’s armies. What remained of the Caracai were in the tent towns of the Communes, on the unlocked land of the plains, along with the scatterings of every other small peoples who had succumbed to the Eastern assault. The girl had come in one of the Commune’s caravans and stayed on when it departed.

  “Ehh,” Bukham said, as always when he was distressed by the fact of conflict and his inability to confront a family member with whom he disagreed. Ghurbat’s patience was ending, he could see by the thinning of his lip and the way the freckled patches across his nose and eyes were darkening. “From a snake to a dragon’s jaws, maybe?” He meant that she might have fled even the scanty comfort of the Commune if it had been dangerous for her. He didn’t think she would have stayed if she’d had a mother, a father, anyone back there. But he could see that she might stay here if there was trouble back there. Or nothing. Or reminders of the past. From a snake to a dragon’s jaws meant he didn’t want to send her to the dragon.

  Ghurbat wasn’t buying it. He had his No Deal face on. “Dragon or not, back she goes. Taib can’t afford to keep strays. We trade, we’re not a charity. If one stays more will come and we’ll end up overrun with them like rats. She goes. You see to it.”

  “Me?” Bukham was taken aback. “But what about the stall?”


  “Your sister can mind it. She needs the practice, in patience if nothing else.”

  Bukham’s heart sank. Tubayu would find managing a produce stall well beneath her capacities. It was the simplest task on the market, requiring only the most basic dealing and gentleness and care in handling the goods. An idiot could do it, and did, as far as Tubayu was concerned. If she had to take it over she’d see it as a punishment and he’d get to pay for that. But he couldn’t say any of that and if he had Ghurbat wouldn’t care. Uncle had more to say however.

  “Murti is going that way tomorrow. He said he would go with you, at least half the way.”

  Murti was one of the Wayfarers, a priest, notorious for the length of journeys he undertook. Probably he was the most widely travelled of them all. Certainly he’d gone the farthest from civilisation that they knew of, returning from the deep South beyond Seven Quays after a period of twenty-one years in which everyone at Taib had written him off as obviously dead. They said he’d been at the battle of Bladno and he was the first to have brought them the news from Nydarrow that the Kinslayer was vanquished.

  “I…” Bukham began but found he hadn’t got an objection ready to go worth the saying. “What if I can’t catch her?”

  Ghurbat picked up a basket of Mu shoots, coiled pale green and buttery yellow with rich oil, sweet and ripe. “You’ll catch her one way or another. You leave tomorrow. Don’t forget to tell Tubayu about the stall.”

  Bukham nodded, already resigned, already failing. He served a customer, his friend Forib, come to get greens and orange pom now that was in season. Two copper scits got a little basketful, though in a week they’d cost two silver pollys or the like, when the weather turned and the mould set in. They exchanged a bit of old market gossip for the sake of something to say, checked their tallies against one another—who had wool for rugs still in stock, how much purple dye was left, did the hole in that van get fixed yet, all small stuff. As he talked Bukham watched over Forib’s shoulder.