The Usurper's Crown

by Sarah Zettel

  And he saw the Firebird swoop down low over the pass. His jaw hung loose and his hands went slack around the reins. His horse lost no time. It charged, and Peshek was on his back on the ground before he knew what had happened. He pushed himself upright, and not even the pain of his fall could make him look away. The whole of his mind was filled with the sight of the creature of living flame. Even as it flew away, he could feel its heat against his skin. Fear and wonder left him paralyzed. It was coming for him now. He was vaguely aware he ought to run, ought to warn, but he could not do anything but stare at the wonder and deadly beauty that filled the sky.

  Kacha’s army began to scream.

  Peshek didn’t think. He scrambled to his feet and stumbled into a run. The world around him shivered with heat, and his lungs protested the need to breathe the burning air. The last of his men galloped past, in the other direction. A few saw him, and shouted. A few more turned around, and he heard the hoofbeats as they raced on with him, until he topped the stony rise.

  The heat sent him reeling backward, both hands held up in a futile attempt to ward it off. The whole world was on fire, a blazing, roaring curtain of red, gold, and white. It boiled up the mountainsides; not even the stone could stop it. Men and animals screamed and were silenced. Smoke black as tar poured into the sky, and the Firebird, magnificent and terrible, rode it high, shrieking in its triumph. Peshek could see nothing but its fire, feel nothing but its heat. Pain seeped into his skin, his throat, his eyes. He turned and he ran.

  He had no conscious thought, he could only run, away from the fire, away from its cause. He could not even pray, he could only run.

  A hot wind blew over him, and Peshek’s gaze lifted without his willing it to. The Firebird streaked above him, and dove again.

  “No!” screamed Peshek. “No!”

  But more men began to scream, and more smoke rose ahead of him, and more heat and more deadly red light leapt into being.

  Fire raging ahead and fire raging behind, Peshek threw himself at the hillside, scrambling for purchase on the stones that were already growing hot from the Firebird’s blaze. He had to get above the fire. That was his only hope. Had to get above, had to get away, had to find a way to help his men, his men who were screaming and dying, whose deaths he could smell and taste as burning flesh in his mouth.

  No, no, no, Vyshko, Vyshemir, no!

  He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. Heat burned his hands, but fear was stronger than pain, and he lunged forward again and again, a wild animal acting only on the desperation of instinct.

  Impossibly, the ground under him grew level. Peshek drew another lungful of burning air, and turned to run again, but a thin bush in front of him burst into fresh flame. Shock took his balance and he fell, and he saw yet more fire on his coat. Peshek screamed and rolled, beating at the flames, the smoke and the stench of his own burning filling his lungs now. He burned inside, he burned outside and pain engulfed him utterly, and all the world went black.

  The wind blew hot from the west and Yamuna turned into it, despite the instinct of his muscles to wheel about and fly away. His crane’s eyes saw the smoke welling thick and black from the cleft in the mountains. The battle had been joined. Peshek’s treason against his annointed emperor moved across the face of the land.

  Yamuna flapped his wings, lifting himself above the hot wind, seeking still air that would allow him to speed on his way. Then, the world before him changed.

  The black clouds of smoke parted, and a great bird formed of living flame rose from the ground with a terrible cry of triumph welling from its throat.

  Phoenix. Yamuna’s flight faltered as, for a moment, fear drowned out all other thought. He dove for the ground, with no other aim than to find a hiding place. He landed, clumsy and terrified, beside a small stream and ducked beneath a drooping willow, cowering as the sky above glowed orange and gold. If he was seen … if he was known to those immortal eyes … He was not strong enough yet. This bane came too soon. Yamuna shivered.

  But the light faded and the sky turned to blue again, streaked with white clouds and the gray of distant smoke.

  Yamuna lifted his crane’s head. The bottled curse burned cold against his throat. He needed to be rid of it, and that soon. But if Peshek were dead in the charred field under the Phoenix’s wings, where would Avanasy go then? And how long would it take to reach him?

  Crying in frustration, Yamuna launched himself again into the wind.

  Pain. There was nothing in the whole of Peshek’s world but pain. His throat whimpered and gasped, but he could not open his mouth for fear he would crumble to ashes then and there. Yet, with each faltering heartbeat, the pain grew worse.

  Grandfather Death, your hands are said to be cool, Peshek moaned. But I’ve failed. I’ve failed …

  “So, the Nine Elders have played their highest card,” said a voice. “We must have scared them badly.”

  Like a child that will reach out to whatever help may be at hand, Peshek lifted his head and tried to open his eyes. He could, but only barely, and the attempt was agony.

  For a second, he saw a thin brown man. He seemed to have a blaze of red at his throat. Then he had to drop his head again, and there was only darkness and pain.

  “Yet, he will still come back to you. You reek of him, Man,” said the voice. “And where he is, she will be, and once this fire is burnt out, we still cannot have them trying to make whole what has been broken, can we?” There was a smile in the voice, Peshek realized. He wanted to move, to beg for water, or for a knife, if that was the only way to end his pain.

  “So, we will wait.”

  “Ingrid.”

  The gentle voice dragged Ingrid reluctantly back from the deep place she had gone. She peeled open her eyes. Avanasy sat on the edge of her bunk, his hand warm against her arm. She had not thought it possible to see him looking any more tired than he had when he had left her to go speak with the empress, but he did now. The dark circles under his eyes made his face look hollow.

  Ingrid pushed herself up onto her elbows and brushed her tousled hair back. She had gone to sleep without braiding it, she noted ruefully, and would be brushing the tangles out for days.

  Odd how it’s the little things that bother one at such a time …

  “How is the empress?” she asked.

  Avanasy shook his head, and his face grew just a little more pinched. “She is … much changed. Kacha has wounded her deeply, and I think her confinement has not been good for her.” His eyes grew distant for a moment, but then he shook himself. “But, it is time for you to be awake. Lien readies us for the crossing.”

  “I’d like to see it.” Ingrid pushed back the covers.

  “Very well.” Avanasy gave her his hand and helped her out of the bunk. She brushed down her skirts and apron and together they climbed to the upper deck.

  Up top, the wind was stiff and sharp, and whipped her hair into her eyes. Medeoan stood at the port rail, watching them. Ingrid pushed her hair back and followed Avanasy’s gaze with her own up to the quarterdeck. Lien stood tall and alone, staring out ahead into the misty morning. The ship sailed easily with the current, the rush of water blending with the rush of the wind. The banks with their burdens of buildings and walls slipped past on either side. She could see a few other vessels in the distance, both before and behind, their sails blending with the morning mists. Overhead, the taut canvas of their own sails bellied in the wind, giving the ship wings.

  Now Ingrid saw that those sails were more than the plain white canvas she was used to. Each had been painted with complex red sigils, woven together into rings and knots. She could make nothing of them other than that they seemed well done, but the expression on Avanasy’s face as he took them in was something close to awe.

  “He’s going to take them in awake,” he murmured. “This ship must have a crew of a hundred men, and he’s going to take them all through the Land of Death and Spirit wide awake. I would have said impossible, but this …” He gest
ured toward the sigils. “No wonder he has been able to defy the Nine Elders for so long.”

  On the quarterdeck, Lien raised his hand. He might have shouted something; Ingrid thought she heard his voice, but the wind snatched his words away. Ahead of them, the green river and the bright sky seemed dimmed and she wondered if they were sailing into a genuine fog. The edges of the world blurred and whitened. The wind dropped, but the sails stayed impossibly full.

  The whiteness brightened and, at the same time, all sound dimmed. The pitch and roll of the ship eased, changing into an even glide, as if they sailed across a garden pond, and all the river turned to flat white mist. There was no more wind.

  Ingrid sucked in a breath of air suddenly grown chill and thin. The silence pressed against her ears, making them ring as she strained to hear some sound beyond the beating of her heart. The men in the rigging and on the deck did not seem to have noticed a thing. They went obliviously about their business, but as one shirtless sailor passed Ingrid she saw his eyes as fixed as glass. Whatever Lien did, it blinded them. They could see nothing of the strangeness beyond the ship, and so, in these Silent Lands, could not be seduced or frightened by any of it.

  Avanasy fingered the braid Ingrid wore on her wrist, as if to reassure himself that it was still sound.

  This time Ingrid felt no tugging, no strange separation of self. She felt whole and sound, almost as if she were stone in this world of mist. Was this how Avanasy felt? Was this what it was to be a sorcerer here? Or was this something else? A spell-wrought rooting that kept her severed soul tied to the deck, like a water cask or a bundle of cotton.

  That thought chafed at her, although she could not have said why. She did not want to leave, to roam in the white mists that swirled before and behind, where she would surely lose herself and all that she was. She could not possibly want that. She wanted to stay beside Avanasy, to see this business she had helped start through to the end, and then … and then …

  She wanted to see whatever came next, of course. She did not want to vanish into the mists. Whatever it was. Avanasy loved her. Truly. The empress was an old love from other days. She was his wife.

  Her fist closed around her ring.

  Around them, the mists parted enough for her to make out patches of green beyond the whiteness. Round, green islands rose from the shifting snow white fog. Each had a single tree growing from it, and each seemed to Ingrid more beautiful than any garden she had ever seen. She meant to take a step toward the rail, but Avanasy gripped her arm and shook his head, and she stayed where she was, her fingers still wrapped hard around her ring.

  From the quarterdeck, Lien waved to them, gesturing for them to come join him. Avanasy moved aside so that Medeoan, and then Ingrid, could precede him up the ladder to stand with Lien on a far-too-steady deck.

  “Who is it you seek to meet?” asked the sorcerer captain. “Is there a name?”

  Medeoan looked to Avanasy. “Peshek Pachalkasyn Ursulvin,” he answered. “And Vyshko grant that he has lived long enough,” Ingrid heard him add under his breath.

  Still with one hand on the rail, Lien stared out past the prow of the great ship. The mists and the green hills moved around them. Here and there, a dark tree floated in the whiteness. Ingrid forced herself not to look. She did not wish to see what birds nested in such trees.

  “I sense him,” said Lien softly, his gaze distant and clouded. “Yes, I sense him. But we may not sail where he is.”

  “You promised …” began Medeoan.

  With painful slowness, Lien turned to focus on her. “We must walk,” he said reasonably.

  “But your ship …” began Avanasy. The sailors went placidly about their duties, unseeing, uncaring. Even Ingrid understood his concern. How long would that last without their master’s will to follow?

  “Will act as if becalmed until I call them forth again,” replied Lien placidly.

  Avanasy had to struggle to keep his jaw from falling open. “You can do such a thing?”

  Lien smiled faintly. “How is it you think I’ve eluded the emperor’s navy and the Nine Elders all these years? This has been all my study, the full focus of my art.” His eyes were calm as he spoke, but his voice was grim. “I pay, and I pay heavily, but I have what I want.”

  “Master Lien,” said Avanasy, and Ingrid heard the awe in his voice, “you should be one of the Nine Elders.”

  “You would not wish such a fate on me if you knew what you spoke of.” He wearily waved Avanasy’s words away.

  A tremor of uncertainty ran through Ingrid. Whatever it was he did, it clearly cost him some effort. How much more did Lien have to give? Would they be able to make it out of these twisting mists?

  But if Lien felt any such doubts, he did not show them. He only faced forward, and began to chant. It was a high, thin sound, oddly loud in the silent world that surrounded them. It chilled Ingrid, and filled her with disquiet, although she could not have said why.

  Then, faintly, blessedly, a sound touched her ear. A distant rushing, like the sound of the sea, or a crowd of voices heard from a long way off.

  The sound of the living world. It could not be anything else.

  Slowly, the mist darkened. The single rushing noise separated into distinct sounds. Ingrid could make out the sound of wind in the trees, a crackle, like dust falling, and the sharp sound of fires burning.

  Lien held out his hand to Medeoan. She took it, and held out hers to Avanasy. Avanasy caught up Ingrid’s hand in his firm, familiar grip, and took the empress’s hand.

  Lien walked forward. Disdainful of the wooden sides of the ship, he strode straight ahead. Ingrid closed her eyes and let herself be pulled along, following the tug of Avanasy’s hand.

  Ingrid’s shoes touched solid ground, and the cool air around her turned warm. She breathed out a sigh of relief, and opened her eyes.

  And she looked out to see the charred remains of a scraggly forest and a rocky hillside that looked down onto a ravine filled with blackened stone and plumes of gray smoke. The myriad, terrible scents of burning assailed her nose. She clapped her hand against her mouth and stumbled backward, and fell.

  A man groaned, and Ingrid suppressed a scream. A mound of ash moved, and was not ash, but a man, a man burnt black and red who looked up at her with startlingly blue eyes.

  “Vyshemir’s knife! Peshek!” cried Avanasy, falling to his knees and raising a cloud of ash.

  Peshek? Ingrid’s mind refused to compass it for a moment. This ruined man was Peshek?

  The ruined man reached out to Avanasy, his ravaged throat struggling to croak out a few sounds.

  “No, Peshek, no.” Avanasy’s own voice cracked. “Lie still, lie still. I’ll help you, but you must …”

  “There you are,” said a new voice. “I’ve been waiting.”

  Ingrid scrambled to her feet. Avanasy rose more slowly, as a man’s form emerged from the shadows.

  He was lean and brown. Ashes turned his bare feet gray, and more ash settled in his braided hair.

  Avanasy moved at once to stand in front of Medeoan and Ingrid.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Medeoan stepped around him, her eyes wide. “Yamuna.”

  The lean man bowed, palms over his eyes, with an air of complete mockery made more terrible by the destruction around them, and by Peshek still as death at their feet. Ingrid saw that his hands were mismatched. One of them was smooth and strong, the hand of a much younger man.

  “I am flattered so illustrious a one would recognize so humble a servant as myself.” Yamuna straightened up. “Your husband has sought long and hard for you, Majesty, but I fear you are a little late in returning.” He smiled toward the cloud of smoke that hung in the distance. Ingrid could smell nothing but burning, and her throat itched from the smoke and ash they had to breathe even here.

  Medeoan went white. She swayed for a bare instant, and murmured a single word. “Kacha.”

  Yamuna smiled. “Yes, poor young Kacha. The
Nine Elders were more frightened by his maneuvers than he realized, and played their highest card against him.”

  “Highest …”

  “No,” croaked Lien. “No.”

  “Yes, old man,” said Yamuna with mock solemnity. “They chose to summon one of the four immortal guardians, and the one they selected was the Phoenix.”

  “The Phoenix?” stammered Medeoan. “They brought the Firebird into the world?”

  “And it is not pleased with your realm.” Yamuna pursed his lips and shook his head at the smoke, even as his dark eyes gleamed.

  “You did this.” Medeoan clenched her fists. “Your magic allowed all this!”

  “So it did,” agreed Yamuna. “And now, my magic will allow me to make an end of you, as well as your man here.” He held up a bottle of scarlet glass, and a chill swept across Medeoan’s skin. She glanced at Avanasy’s face, and saw how he groped for a spell, for a defense against whatever magic was to come. Yamuna raised his arm. Medeoan lifted her hands, as did Lien.

  Ingrid leapt. She tackled Yamuna with all her weight and they fell together. She rolled over, coming up on top of the skinny old man, clutching the wrist of his impossibly young hand in both of hers. He snarled and struggled, but she hung grimly on. His fingers loosened from around the bottle, and it fell.

  It dropped into Avanasy’s outstretched hand. Avanasy stumbled forward, handing it to Lien, who received it quickly. Yamuna screamed and Ingrid screamed, but she had been distracted and he threw her off, causing her to hit the ground hard and take in a lungful of ash. Choking and sputtering, she forced herself to her feet. Yamuna was already standing. Avanasy snatched up a pike that lay beside a dead man. Ingrid heard the hiss as the hot metal touched his flesh, and now he too screamed, but he wheeled around. Avanasy charged forward, and the pike spit flesh and bone and heart.

  Yamuna fell without a sound.

  Avanasy dropped the pike and stood over the body, panting for a long moment. Ingrid moved to his side, as did Medeoan, but he did not seem aware of them. Ingrid’s lungs and eyes burned, and she knew he felt the same, but she also knew that his heat did not only come from outside. It came from the rage that would not be quieted by the death of this enemy. This man’s whole world should burn, for what he had done, was doing to Peshek, and Medeoan, and himself, and Isavalta, and to her, to Ingrid.