Salvation's Fire

by Justina Robson

  “Mmn,” the Archimandrite murmured reprovingly as he got up, leaning on Carzel, “I don’t think our gods would do anything like that to someone. Not very kind. In fact it sounds very much like spiteful envy to me.”

  The gavel hit the table smartly. “Anyway, the day’s business is adjourned,” Adondra said. She paused, and sighed. “I suppose we could give her supplies.”

  “Yes, I think that would be the least we could offer,” the Archimandrite said. “If we wanted to stay on the right side of things. Not to mention there is the hole that needs fixing.”

  Adondra looked at him with caution. “What things? You mean you. And the Temple.”

  “I mean the things,” he said. “All the things.” From a doze of negligent beaititude he was suddenly wide awake. There was such a presence about him, such a certainty—and she knew he wasn’t talking about gods. If there were more things about than gods, guardians and Ilkand city’s populations she didn’t want to know about them at that moment. Put it down to an old man’s fancy.

  She closed her mouth in an uneasy line. “Well we’ll give her supplies and a ship if that tosspot Vakloz decides he can’t be bothered.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  DEFFO MET FURY, or Dr Fisher as he was known to everyone besides the other Guardians, on the headland overlooking Ilkand Bay. He hadn’t wanted to but Fury had insisted and since Deffo didn’t like being followed everywhere by a noisome parakeet constantly asking him, “Where’s da trouble? Where’s da trouble, squire, eh?” he had discreetly withdrawn from the party as they walked through the market and made his way up here, following the flapping, multi-coloured invention of Duke Timoran all the way. The parakeet was meant to be for lords and ladies who enjoyed new and exciting means of rapid communications in setting up their various intrigues but, like the brass mechanical army, it had suffered a lot from local weather conditions and was now only fit for annoying someone to the point of madness until they did whatever it had been told to ask them to do or found a way of permanently disposing of it.

  Deffo had swatted it with his walking stick, but it was too quick for him and after a houseman in livery had tossed him two scits, thinking him a refugee doing a busking act, he’d given up that effort and done as he was told.

  “What do you want?” he asked the taller and more distinguished Fury. Fury had a certain short tempered, hawkish nature that didn’t abide Deffo gladly and he was longing to be out of there and into a pleasant evening anywhere else.

  “I want to know what you know about this Tzark business,” Fury said. The parakeet, now that its duty was done, had returned to his shoulder and switched itself off with a distinct spanging noise. He removed it and placed it back in his satchel. “Tricky must have seen you. And here you are. Who are those women and where are they taking them?”

  “I don’t know and we are all going with Wanderer to see the gods again. Why didn’t you ask him, anyway?”

  “Asking you is always more rewarding,” Fury said. “And he has a way of not giving the answers. Did Tricky say she wanted to reconnect them with the world?”

  “No.” Deffo paused. “Did she say that to you?”

  “No,” Fury said. “Isn’t it strange that there are Tzarkomen abroad with you and Tricky had a Tzarkomen coffer with her the other day. But she’s not here and they are.”

  “It’s strange that you spend your life working in a dusty shop pretending to be human but I didn’t bring that up,” Deffo said, resentfully. “Each to their own. I should think you’d find more answers in Tzarkand.”

  “The shop is not dusty,” Fury said. He paused, watching the gulls and gannets wheel over the port, the cloud coming in across the sea on a breeze of chill and damp. “She’s up to something, but for the life of me I can’t figure it out.”

  “Tricky?”

  “Who else? And if I find out you knew and it endangers my existence in my clean and beautiful shop then we will meet again.”

  “Why would I know anything?”

  Fury looked at him. He smiled, although it was very much a baring of his long, slightly yellowed teeth. “Go along now. Before they miss you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THE WIDOW DEMADELL owned one of the finest houses in Ilkand. It was set back from the harbour partway up a hill in a many-terraced splendour of mingled gardens and small buildings, from whence it commanded many excellent views of both the town and the sea. A certain grandeur of vision had given it a torchlit hall capable of hosting over a hundred guests in a prime position, lower than but certainly on nodding terms with the Temple on the opposite cliff.

  The walk up to it wound through fragrant bushes and alternately attempted to amaze and delight as it offered glimpses into secluded bowers followed by the sharp, windswept vastness of the sky, land and waves. It was almost impossible to get Lysandra, Kula and Nedlam more than ten yards without a game of halt, stare, explore. Bukham had started to feel churlish by halfway up as he chivvied them along. He wanted to appear urbane and sophisticated but inside he was joining in every laugh as they discovered another hidden stone table set with sculpted stone jugs and fruits or gawped at a breath-taking expanse of the sun going down in orange splendour behind the mage’s spire. Gulls shrieked and wheeled high overhead and they could see smaller and fatter birds skimming the waves far below. It gave plenty of time for both him and Celestaine to reconsider the wisdom of accepting an invitation without the forethought of bathing and dressing accordingly, especially when they forgot to consider whether or not they would be the only guests. He had memories of the finer parts of trading life and they didn’t include greeting people in the same sweaty, stained things you’d been travelling in for days. These people perfumed the air with sixteen kinds of bushberry flowers. It seemed unlikely they’d be keen on street people, but their fears went unrealised as they were ushered to the open hall and were greeted by the sight of all the guests wearing nearly identical garments, even Lady Demadell herself, who was cunningly outfitted with a half-armour and linens beneath an artfully muddied cape.

  She swept it back gracefully to reveal a short sword and a dagger in her belt as she came to greet them in person, Celestaine first, then the rest. “Slayer, honoured voyagers, how thrilling to have you. Please, no standing on ceremonies, let the feasting commence!” She flourished her hand and the gathered worthies, of every kind, including some he didn’t even know the names of, immediately fell to plundering the tables and filling up the benches. Bukham was gazing, stupefied with surprise at the honours, at the planes of her majestic bust, and found himself suddenly wondering what had happened to Tricky, and poor, wrecked Ralas. So piercing was his guilt for them missing out on this that he stepped aside and asked Heno if there had been any signs.

  But Heno was looking across the hall at someone steadily making his way towards them through the crowd. Bukham followed his gaze. The two of them towered over most of the guests but this man was shorter by the same margin, though he seemed to be not only short but entirely scaled down one level. He was wiry and dressed exactly as Bukham had always imagined sea captains, in sturdy thigh boots, tight trews and a short overkilt of heavy oilcloth panels hinged together with mail. His shirt and doublet were wrapped about by double bandoliers upon which a variety of weapons and pockets and tools were neatly hung, their leather as black and supple as only lifetimes of steady use could make them. He had a skirted overcoat in red, black and purple which was his only extravagance besides a waxed moustache and neat, pointed beard. His silver-white hair was half braided and hung down his back to his waist. Three heavy plaits that hung over his shoulder bore an array of trinkets, rings and beads, finished with feathers and, on the largest, an owl skull with a black beak.

  Heno was staring at him strangely, even more than the appearance warranted, Bukham thought. Celestaine noticed Heno’s fixation too and stepped in front of him just as the man reached them and the faint scaling on the sides of his face became apparent in the flickering torchlight.


  “No need for defences, Slayer,” the man said in a choppy kind of way, as though biting through every word of the Kandir and then devouring it. “News of your presence here travels fast. I am Vakloz, Captain of the Snakeheart. We sail out of Ystachi waters and bear Ystachi flags though we are free traders. My Lady Demadell informs me you want to sail to the edge of the Wanderer’s Ice Road on Galladion Isle.”

  He barely came up to Celestaine’s shoulder. Bukham was aware of Kula tugging urgently at Lysandra’s hand as they all gathered to see. Around them the socialites of Ilkand, those who were scraping together society from war’s leavings, craned to hear as the Lady joined them. It wasn’t her gaze that the Captain’s locked with, however, but that of the stooping, twice-his-height Murti.

  “Hello, old friend,” he said. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

  “Mysteries,” Murti said, and smiled before Celestaine cut him off smoothly.

  “We are seeking to restore some old relics from pre-War days to their rightful owners,” she said, with a smoothness that Ralas might have been proud of.

  “Reparations?” the Captain looked surprised. “Well, you’re the only ones I’ve seen so far.”

  “And retributions,” Heno added. “Where required.”

  “Indeed, and what have you to be venging, friend?” There was a distinct iciness to the Captain’s tone.

  The Lady put her hand on his arm gently for a moment and something passed between them before she let go.

  “A lifetime in the mines and the cells,” Nedlam said. “So, the usual. And yourself?”

  “Five ships and crews. Some in the drink. Some went to the life-forges.”

  At the mention of these things the Lady became paler and her lips thinned.

  Celestaine frowned. “Life forges?”

  But before anyone could explain they were interrupted by a slim boy wearing the Lady’s livery who came dashing up with a note sealed in the Governor’s wax and signet. The Lady noted it and then with a curious look passed it to Celestaine. “It appears this is for you.”

  Celestaine broke the seal and unrolled the letter. They could all see that it was a map, and rather a fine one, which had been lately annotated and a key attached to it with bearings. A compass was included which slid out of place and would have fallen to the floor had the Captain not darted forward and caught it, bringing it up in surprise before his face.

  “Ystachi-made. What have you there?”

  Celestaine held it open and they peered at it. “It’s a map of the ocean to the North. But someone’s drawn on it—a route from Ilkand that leads to the Ice, but then follows… What is this circle?” She angled it so that Captain Vakloz could see but he didn’t need to. Even upside down he had already noted the essentials.

  “It’s the whirlpool,” he said. “The hole in the world, as they call it since it opened up. When the Kinslayer came through here, when he took my ships. That’s where he went. Some over the ice and some towards the archipelago. They sank there, all hands lost. The crews of his on the ice set up the forges and well, that’s where he made his dragons.”

  “How did it get to Bladno from there, then?” she asked.

  “More than one hole,” the Captain said.

  “Wait, you mean under the earth?”

  “And the ocean,” he said. “Yes. And he had ways of connecting places that didn’t pass through the world in between. The life forges are down there.”

  Celestaine let the map roll up. “How do you know so much about it?”

  “Because I was on board when the last ship went down and I came back, through the ice.”

  For a torchlit feast the hall had gone mightily quiet.

  “More drinks! We have fables to tell!” Lady Demadell commanded and at her gesture some musicians gathered in a corner struck up a fresh tune. She turned to Celestaine. “One can share a story with a Slayer one would not bother to trouble lesser minds with. Your map shows what the sailors have known for ages but had not told until lately.”

  “Why now?” Celestaine asked, reaching to a passing tray for the largest cup of wine she could see. She watched Lysandra and Kula help themselves.

  “Because you’re here, my dear. Nobody dares the wrath and curses of the Varkadians, nor the galleys of the Ystachi, and the hole requires a venture into regions both claim as their own. Much as they live in terror of the whirlpool they have a more pragmatic vision when it comes to their mortality above the waves. But you have killed the beast at Bladno and you have brought an end to the Kinslayer himself. Rumour has it that you have given wings to the wingless and here is proof that you have become allies with the most scurvy and terrifying of souls,” she said and glanced warmly at Heno and Nedlam. “Not to mention your most generous, wild companions,” this time the glance went to Lysandra who was drinking wine like it was going out of fashion, both hands on either side of a small jug, oblivious. “Surely you see where this is going?”

  “I’m here to clean up the mess…” Celestaine said, wonderingly, feeling an appalled expression settle on her face. “That’s what everyone thinks. That I’m the cleaner.”

  “Was heroism ever anything else?” Lady Demadell asked. “And seldom has it ever come in such a well favoured and generous package as yourself.”

  Celestaine reached out suddenly, dropping the map to grasp the Lady’s arm, gently but firmly as she spoke in a whisper of absolute conviction, “I do not want to be sung about, talked about, or considered anybody’s doer of great deeds. Do you—”

  She was cut off by Lysandra coming up for air, one hand sweeping across her mouth before she declared loudly and in perfect Ilkand-Kandir. “Lies. She loves cleaning. And besides, that’s where we’re anyway going.”

  All eyes turned to her, as if they hadn’t been longing to anyway.

  “And who might you be, my dear?” the Lady asked, her gaze roving over the tattered threads on Lysandra’s dress where it was clear that some decorations had lately been snipped away.

  Lysandra finished her drink, wiped her mouth on her sleeve and tossed her cup aside. “I’m Lysandra. The Kinslayer’s Bride.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  AT FIRST WALKING to Nydarrow seemed like it was the only thing to do. It was painful and it was far, but it was possible for

  Ralas. He was glad to leave the Tzarkomen’s bereft world with its flitting ghosts, like a constant shiver at the edges of vision. They ended once he’d passed the marker post of skulls and so he figured that’s what it had been. He didn’t know for sure and he didn’t care to know. On his back he carried the lute and in his arms he carried Tricky’s coat because it was too hot to wear two. Sundown came quickly as he measured his way in steps, moving with a slight rhythm, like a phrase made of footsteps, talking to the way, asking it how it was going, how far, how long.

  Dusk came and the answer was clear. Too long. He had made a few erratic miles. She had been swallowed whole by… well, by something he didn’t understand—and if his only way to find her was to reach Nydarrow he had days of marching ahead at an army’s fattened, whip-lashed pace. He had a dead bard’s pace. It could be a week. He could go astray and it be more. The only bonus to being in this landscape—full of small valleys, full of trees, thick with an absence of people—was that only the geography was giving him trouble. And then the geology decided it would give him some more. His foot struck a large rock, concealed cunningly in the open, and he tripped up and went arse over tit down the steep hill he’d been trying to carefully negotiate in the vague idea that at the bottom was either a little track that led to the north road or a river full of midges that also, eventually, led to the river that led past the north road.

  He clutched the coat reflexively and endured the battering by counting how many things he struck on the way past. Grass, stone, small tree, bigger tree, thorny bush, thistle… and there we are, there was a river. Call it a stream. Muddy rivulet. Rocky-bedded thread of deceptively cold mountain dew. Whatever it was it was wet and
full of hard and painful reminders that he was easily broken. He waited for an arm to straighten and for an ankle to remodel itself before pulling himself up and onto the hillside. He was soaked but remarkably Tricky’s coat seemed dry. It shed a few drops of water which ran off it like diamonds. The piece of paper had fallen out of the un-fall-outable pocket and landed on the muddy scrape that passed for a bank. Rat feet had marked it and showed the way to a remarkable number of holes, he saw as he bent to retrieve it. The last daylight glowed fiercely orange in the west as he reached, seeing, or thinking that he saw the lettering on the note shivering and changing…

  A thing surged upwards out of the raw gravel and muck, causing it to burst open and fountain about, scattering in bits everywhere. He lost the paper in the deluge of earth pattering down on his head and hands. He glimpsed, through the cage of his fingers, a humanoid thing, black in the twilight, glistening on hard surfaces; clawed hands, chitinous plating, a long, ugly head like the painted skull of a horse, teeth, a long tongue flickering out to taste the air in a whiplash of slime. He waited for the inevitable pain and brutality, not braced because that never helped, only delayed and prolonged matters.

  He was still waiting ten seconds later, and ten after that. He took his hands down from his face. The thing stood there, folded in storklike angles into a resting state. He didn’t see eyes—the face if there was one was covered by a shield of translucent grey which reflected the sun’s dying light in soft lines of gold and pink. Beneath it something slid. The tongue came out again, not so much this time, like it had gathered all it needed and was only checking for updates.

  When it continued not moving he stood up straight, clutching the coat to him, reminded of his childhood ragdoll with a sudden sharp pang in a bit of him he’d thought long since gone. Up and down the gully only the water moved, undeterred, around the creature’s legs. If he hadn’t seen its arrival he could have mistaken it for a dead tree in the near-darkness—well, if he didn’t count the tongue. He felt that somehow it was linked to the paper and looked about again for the note but there was no sign of it anywhere. As he moved the creature moved too, startling him even as he realised it was mirroring his own actions.