by Blake Rivers
“We’re in a cell, I think,” Florence said, her voice muffled by Hero’s shoulder. “A very, very small cell.”
“Me, too,” he replied, his breath a rasp chased with a cough. “Captive. There are these bars…”
Hero nodded. “Same here.” He strained against the grate and looked out into the room beyond where walls were bathed in the pallid light of torches and showed painted images, barely glimpsed. Beyond was a wide gallery, open to the night. A silvery moon dashed upon a mosaic floor, illuminating seven orbs, six small and one large. They appeared to shimmer like a flame to water. He watched them for a time, seeing patterns dance around and around.
“I don’t remember much, not after the bookshop,” Florence said. “We were sitting on the floor and now we’re here. Are we in the palace?”
“I think so.” Hero eyed the mural of Romany and her followers, ghostly figures on the walls of a tomb. “I’m sure of it, in fact. Can you not use your power to—”
“Shh,” she hushed, her finger visible against her lips, even in the gloom. “She might be listening. Ami’s alive, I can feel it, and right now that’s all we need to know. We’re only the bait.”
“I think I hear something,” Raven whispered, and sure enough, echoed footfalls followed his words, a pair of double doors opening to the far left of them. In a momentary shaft of firelight and shadow came four men, hooded and cloaked, their tangled beards hanging low before their scrawny chests. With their eyes downcast, they filtered in to stand silently upon four of the six orbs, the last two remaining empty.
Hero reached out through the bars.
“Let us out! We mean you no harm.”
“It’s useless,” Florence whispered, “save your breath. They aren’t who we’re here for.”
“No, I guess not,” he said, and pulled his arm back through as the light in the room fluttered and extinguished in a sudden eclipse of shadow.
Romany was on the gallery.
This was the goddess, terrible, powerful and beautiful, her dark hair sparking with bejewelled power as it spilt across her shoulders.
She glanced between Raven’s alcove and their own, and Hero caught a glimpse of the sensual power that made men fall to their knees before her. He would never be such a man. Ami beat within his heart, as did his honour as a Guard; bowing to temptation was for other men.
The woman stepped forward and addressed Hero directly. “For too long I searched for a world that no longer lives. I know now that my Celestial is forever lost. But I am still a Creator, and I shall wipe this canvas clean. I shall make the fragments whole again.”
Florence shuffled further into the alcove as Romany moved slowly forward, skirting the edge of the largest orb. She reached out toward them, a faint smile tainting her face as the torches reignited once more upon the walls.
“What do you mean to do?” Hero asked, but the woman gave no answer. The newly fired flames turned red, and the quakes increased, cracking stone. He braced himself and sheltered Florence behind him as the chamber filled with dust that fell from fractures. Raven’s coughing became relentless and the old men stumbled to keep position, mumbling chants in haste. A crack chased a black line across the throats of the painted order, mosaic patterns scattering as tesserae were shaken loose to chip and smash upon the floor.
She was close, her hand near touching the iron bars.
“I’ve been feeding him, but he is truly hungry, and so when a near-Sentry wanders so willingly, parading a power so carelessly…”
“You’ll not take her,” Hero growled.
Romany grasped the grate between them. “Ami will be along, but I meant the unicorn.”
Iron screamed as the grate was pulled free, and Hero felt a force push and hold him against the wall. “No!” he cried, but Romany had already seized Florence by her hair and dragged her out onto the floor. “Don’t hurt her, I’ll—”
“It’s okay, Hero,” Florence managed, her voice a gasp through gritted teeth as her long locks were wound around Romany’s hand, a shadowy claw. The grate slammed back into place and Hero’s paralysis was released.
Florence was jerked to her feet and pushed onto the surface of the large lunar, her sword lifted free and sent clattering between the murmuring men.
“You cannot leave,” Romany said. “Strays sometimes come, strangers from far away, drawn as moths to a flame. They feed him, though hardly a morsel, but this one?” She circled the lunar, her heels clicking. “This one will free him.”
Hero cried out and threw himself to the metal once more, grasping his sword; but he could reach nothing and no one. Still, he could do nothing.
“She will stop you,” Florence said, her defiance for Romany only. “She will find us and you will—”
“What’s this I hear?” The woman tilted her head to the gallery, her hand cupped behind her ear. “I hear the approach of a lamb to the slaughter. She is coming.”
Then with a quick whip of her hand, Romany sent a column of flame around Florence that surrounded her entirely, the red tongues crawling her body and licking her hair before hitting the stone ceiling above. She cried out and fell forward, suddenly a blur beneath a shower of white sparks. Florence, and then Florina, screamed, her discarded sword spinning and scuttling into the fray to merge at her forehead as a crystal horn. She emerged from the light tethered and caught.
“Here, before me, a mythical creature of power,” Romany mocked, circling the event with glee, “a cousin of the Sentry and my kin.” She went as if to touch her, stopping shy of crossing the circle’s line, and then raised her arms, hands clasped above her head. Power gathered between her palms and crawled across her in tiny beads of light. They swirled and swirled into a ball of fire that outshone even the brightest of lights. Hero covered his eyes, Raven’s nearby scream echoing his own, his sight burning behind tightened fingers.
“Come, Princess,” she called, her voice a terrifying boom. “Come to me, now!”
*
The longer she stared down at the dead body, the more morbid she felt, yet Ami couldn’t seem to pull away. There was little to no resemblance, and yet the familiarity had been there all along. Adam. Could it possibly be true? Back in the Mortrus Lands the situation had been grim, and her memories had gotten confused and tangled. Those that had disappeared through the portal had their lives renewed, or so it had been reckoned, yet they’d assumed Adam lost—they all had—and yet…?
She took a deep breath, smelling the iron of Britanus’s spilt blood, the dust and mould, the destruction above; in her mind she ran through the black woods again, seeing Adam-doubled and sent into the hollowed trees. She bent down and took the man’s face in her hands, staring into his dead gaze.
“Adam,” she whispered, closing his eyes with her thumbs and laying him back down. It was a gentle gesture, for one who’d hurt her and helped her in more than one life, yet as she moved off toward the steps, lit the colour of hell itself, she thought it at least kind. Adam and Britanus would now be at rest.
She took the steps slowly, watching her footing and kicking away loose stone fragments as she went. At the top she knelt, inspecting the space where the doorway had been, now just a hole blocked by wreckage. She could hear the wind barely breathing beyond, but little else. Letting the power gather inside her and swirl in the pit of her stomach, Ami sent it shivering through her muscles. It dripped from her in colours that lit the carnage in hues of green, the colour of Adam’s spite and malice—the poison that would never leave her—and purples, violets and dark pinks of her own. She remained poised for a moment only, wondering what she would face on the other side, if anything at all, and then holding her breath, leapt upward.
The wood and stone were splinters and shards, yet they hardly touched her at all as she broke free and landed deftly upon a mound of collapsed debris. Pulverised brick and plaster rose in dust clouds while thatch burned and spread throughout the town, black smoke lifting only to hang low in the desolate streets. There were no longer an
y surrounding houses, none to the back or sides, or across the way; only empty spaces and burning rubble, the occasional pan or bottle, a bath or sink, cracked and blackened, a chair overturned, a table splintered; a window frame held a single pane of glass, a single spark of moonlight glinting from the smallest of cracks. It looked like a lonely star.
Ami hadn’t felt the tears streaking her cheeks until she wiped them with the back of her hand, smudging blood and dirt, and hadn’t recognised the anger that had risen within her until her jaw began to throb, her teeth clenching back a scream.
With weightless steps, the princess slipped down in an avalanche, tripping to the ash-strewn cobbles. A loose sob came with her breath and caught painfully in her chest. How many people had just been killed, in the houses across the way, in the ones to the left, to the right? Had she not heard the tears of a family once alive and now dead? Ami sniffed back the pain and wrung her eyes dry. Oh, what it was to feel such guilt and empathy, knowing she’d once been the cause, knowing now that she was the only remedy. She saw each body buried beneath as she’d seen those butchered before only a street away, or those massacred in memories and revisited thoughts. Romany needed to be stopped, and so she would face her, knowing she might lose. How was she going to save them, any of them?
In a fallen pile of rubble, Ami spotted what looked like a hand, black and misshapen, a charred book covering the owner’s face. Pulling it aside revealed the horror of a ruined man. The stink repelled her, but she didn’t pull back; something else had caught her eye there. Unburned and wrapped around the corpse was a robe of grey cloth. She was careful not to touch the body, but instead teased the garment from his arms, peeling it from his torso. It was ripped and filthy, nothing more than a rag now, but as she held it up in the moonlight, she surely recognised it.
“The Guard of Legacy.” Something metal fell with a tinkle and landed on the man’s chest. She scooped it up in an instant, her eyes flashing a cool purple.
The golden chess piece, the rook. Her way back.
She gave the dead man one more look, and then as if following his spirit, looked to the heavens to spy upon the stars. They didn’t care, didn’t mind at all, and would keep watching her, offering only their eternal beauty to remind her that not everything was always so bad.
A sea salt wind scratched her sore eyes, carrying with it a pinch of pine and chestnut, undoubtedly from the rain-fresh forests, and the smell of sulphur and smoke, woody and homely.
Leaving the body to the night, Ami let her feet lead on, and by the time she looked back, she’d already passed several houses and had in fact walked quite a ways from the site of the inferno.
The moon still paved the way for her, sloping back onto the thoroughfare and out into a smaller side street with no name. Here there were many houses cramped and clustered together, fighting for room in the narrow row, and with a swift turn toward them, she realised that she was still being watched.
Scared faces were hiding, barely concealed beneath light drapery; peeking, watching, tear-stained and shaking.
She stopped as she came level with a low paned window, giving out knee high to the street. Three grey faces peered out at her, fearful yet not in flight. Even though she knew she had to get to the palace, something whispered to her of an urgent diversion. Ami shivered and grasped the doorknob, turning it. The faces disappeared as the latch snapped, and gripping her sword tight at her waist, she entered.
She was met by a wall of heat, and though the air was tainted with the smell of smoked wood and ash, the stuffy closeness was welcome, reminiscent of winter nights spent in front of an open fire wearing only pyjamas and fluffy slippers; she could almost taste the hot chocolate, though she couldn’t feel it in her grasp—her hands were frozen—but the sense of being wrapped in arms of soft flicker and crackle-spit was comforting. Danger had so far followed her, chased her and begged for her pursuit at every turn, yet she felt no danger here at all.
There was a thump and scurry in the dark as the shadows of three children scrambled for cover beneath an upturned sofa, its cushions spread over a complicated arrangement of brooms and wound wool. Sheets and quilts and pillows galore were piled and laid, stacked and barricaded around the room, and Ami was acutely aware that hard, solid objects had been stockpiled—missiles to be thrown, given half a chance.
She closed the door to the outside world and stepped further into the room to the edge of the soft fort, holding her hands out either side of her, feigning ignorance of their whereabouts.
“I don’t know where you are, and you don’t have to come out, but I’m not here to harm you. I’d only like to talk to you.”
A brass missile flashed as it flew through the air at her head. She dodged and caught it, reflexes as sharp as ever. Opening her hand she saw it was a pig, polished and smooth, a carrot stuck half in its mouth, a large slot cut into its back. A piggy bank.
“That was a good shot,” she said, weighing it heavy in her hand. Whispers followed, the soft light of the fire touching silhouettes, long hair splayed in a shake, a finger risen to another’s lips. Ami stepped back to the door in retreat, placing the pig gently on a dresser.
Opposite the main door was a hallway that led to the back of the house, the kitchen furthest away at the end. The door was open but she saw no food, dirty plates or cups; she smelt no recent meal either. What are they eating?
Another missile launched, this one going wide, clattering against the wall. It knocked a hanging frame to the floor, a family portrait in oil, dad, mum and three children. She picked it up gingerly, studying it for a moment, wondering where mum and dad were, before returning it to its hook. She expected another object, but none came, and was able to straighten the painting before turning back, her eyes passing over the fort.
There’d been a time she’d built similar, back before creation and destruction, before Legacy, Hero and Romany. She would take over the living room and align cushions and sheets to hide beneath, waiting for her mum to come looking for her, to find her and join her deep within the imagined tent or cave, dungeon or palace.
Slowly, Ami dropped to her knees and threw her plait over her shoulder. The power aiding her sight showed her each shadowed body, each beating heart, and even each expelled breath. They were frightened, huddled, and if she were honest with herself, she was just as wary of them, the place, the diversion she was trusting instead of saving those she knew and cared for. Hero’s face passed in front of her and she strained to push it away. No, something was here, and it was Dangerous who whispered to her, whispered into her soul. There was something she needed to learn here, but in order to do it, she must put the fearful at ease and set aside the urgency of Romany’s challenge.
Another missile, off course, a lazy throw, a warning shot only.
Ami sat back. “May I come in?” she asked, still too brash. She softened her voice a little more, shrugging off the Assassin Princess. “I don’t wish to intrude, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to sit here…and hide also.”
“We’re not hidi—” a girl’s voice shouted in defiance before being shushed by an older boy.
Through the fabric of the curtain, Ami saw a rain of lights fall once more, the explosions muted fireworks, loud and scary, missing choruses of oooos and ahhhs. “I’m hiding from the falling stars,” she whispered, lost for a moment in the flicker and flash behind the curtain. “Hiding from the woman.” Further shuffles and snuffles, whispers in the dark. The closeness of the heat was stifling, but she liked it, and she pondered on her own words. “I’d like to rest here, away from—” The ground began to shake and the girls squealed. A cushion toppled from the fort, revealing the youngest girl cowering against a boy and a girl a few years older. She couldn’t see their faces, but she could see them trembling. More cushions tumbled and a sheet slipped to show the skeleton structure beneath. Ami wished she could put the sheet back up and repair the fort for them, hide them deep in the cushions, under the sheets where they’d sleep soundly in the crook o
f the overturned sofa—but she was not one of them, only a usurper. Once she had what she wanted, she’d leave them, and they’d be on their own again. She was a liar, she realised, out for bigger things than comfort and castles of cushions. But she had to go through with it. The show must go on, and even if they didn’t know or understand why, it was still for them, wasn’t it? “—away from this.” She reached forward and grabbed a cushion or two, burying her head into the nearest barricade. It was nice to close her eyes, ears and mind between the soft cushions. In them she could squeeze the bad from the world and hide—but she wasn’t a child any longer. She looked up to the three, and they looked back at her, and then to the window. Good, she thought, more afraid of what’s out there than me in here.
“When will it stop, Thomas?” the smaller girl cried, but the older boy only shook his head and squeezed her all the tighter.
“Soon, Jay,” the other girl said, reaching over to her. “It won’t last long. It never does.”
“He’ll get us!”
“No, no, Jay,” said the boy. “It’s just a story. There’s nothing out there.”
“Yes there is,” Jay shrieked. “He’s coming back.”
“Shh.”
Ami pushed forward beneath the sheet, getting a little closer. It occurred to her that Hero, Raven and Florence may be dying, dead already, yet she hid beneath pillows and sheets…but the feeling of rightness was stronger than ever. There was a missing part still to be told, and even now she felt it unravelling.
“It’s night when it should be day,” Jay moaned. “He’s coming.”
“No, see, it’s already ending,” the girl said, wiping her sister’s tears away. “Already going,” she said with a smile.
The tremors were indeed coming to an end, the lights disappearing. The sheet finally slipped to the ground covering Ami in the soft, white fabric. She shuffled out, feeling like a caterpillar getting its wriggle on, and when she peeked out from the end, she saw the small girl giggling at her.