The Cleansing Flame

by Alec Hutson

  My fingers tighten on the edge of the table as a wave of disappointment washes over me. The loss of Poz has been dominating my thoughts, but somewhere in the back of my mind I’d been holding out hope that I’d discover word about Valyra when we finally reached the city. Even among all the oddities I’d seen in Ysala and the lands we’d passed through I’m sure the tribe would have stuck out – the red hair and copper eyes might not be too memorable in a land with red-skinned women and slug-knights, but a sword of red glass and Valans’s ability to summon cutting light would certainly spawn all sorts of rumors.

  It seems they never made it through the portal into this place . . . at least anywhere near here. There’s a bleakness rising up in me that they might be dead or lost forever between the worlds.

  I toss back my wine cup and reach for the half-empty bottle. “Do you have enough coin for another one of these?”

  14

  I awaken feeling like I’ve been drowned in a wine-dark sea, then cast ashore upon some deserted sands. I groan, weakly moving my arms among the tangled blankets and scattered pillows, dull pain rising and receding in my head like the waves on a storm-lashed beach.

  “Good morning,” Deliah says brightly.

  “Hrgh,” I mumble, with some effort lifting my face from the bed.

  The lamias stands radiant in the morning light, just in the process of pulling on a cream-colored shirt. I can’t believe how fresh and rested she looks – it’s almost like she hadn’t helped finish a half-dozen bottles of wine, atop of a full decanter of her numbing sap-alcohol.

  “How . . . how are you –” The rest of what I’m trying to say evaporates as my stomach gives a dangerous churn.

  “How am I what?” Deliah says, taking a silver necklace from a side table and slipping it over her head. “Standing?”

  I nod weakly, then bury my face in a pillow.

  “My people are not as affected by drink as yours. No headaches, at least. It does make us very hungry, though.”

  I hear her moving around the bed, and then her fingers wrap around my ankles. “So let’s go get some breakfast.”

  “Please,” I moan, my hands scrabbling for something to cling to, “let me die in peace.”

  “You’ll feel better with something hot and greasy in your stomach,” Deliah says, and then yanks hard on my legs. My insides lurch again as I slide down the bed, but by some miracle everything stays in place. I end up sitting in a pile of blankets on the floor, staring up blearily at the lamias looming above me.

  She’s slipped her weapon across her back, though she hasn’t donned her armor. “What?” I say, pointing at the curved blade rising over her shoulder. “Do you expect breakfast to put up a fight?”

  “Let’s go,” she says, and a moment later my shirt hits me in the face.

  Morning in the Blight has a far different flavor than the late afternoon. The cloaked fellows who had been skulking around the street outside The Last Word have vanished, and I don’t suppose I’ll see them again until the sun begins to go down. In their place are a collection of makeshift stalls, from which the sound of sizzling oil is drifting, along with waves of greasy, delicious-smelling smoke. Each of these cooking stalls has a small crowd clustered around it waiting patiently – it’s a diverse group, as I see middle-aged women wearing modest but threadbare dresses, old men in the livery of house servants, and swaying, sunken-faced men and women who look like they might have just crawled up from the gutters where they spent the night. Nothing brings together all manner and class of people like street food.

  Deliah shoulders her way through one of these knots of people, and I follow. When she brushes past a large, bald man in a bloodied apron who looks like he pulled the graveyard shift at an abattoir he gives an annoyed grumble, but when he turns and sees her this turns into an exclamation of surprise. Even in this city of wonders these women from the isle of Vel are something of note.

  An ancient man who resembles nothing more than a pile of sticks bound together is behind a massive, curved iron pan, upon which a half-dozen circles of dough are hissing in oil. With long-practiced grace he cracks an egg-one handed over one of these pancakes and then scatters a handful of chopped spring onion and chilies. It smells divine, and my stomach’s earlier desire to remove all food from its confines has been emphatically reversed.

  “Two jien bangs,” Deliah says, tossing a handful of small coins into the wooden box beside where the fellow is cooking.

  He doesn’t nod or say anything to show he’s heard, but after flipping the pancakes in the oil he scoops two handfuls of dough from the pile next to the pan, kneads them for a brief moment, and then tosses them down among the others. I step back, wincing as a few hot drops of oil splatter my arm. The old cook notices this and flashes a gap-toothed smile.

  “It’ll take a few moments,” Deliah says, wandering away from the crowd. At the edge of the street she smiles and stretches her arms over her head, raising her face to the sun. “What a glorious day,” she says. “I never thought I’d say it, but I’ve missed this place.”

  A cloying, fetid smell is creeping from the alleyway closest to us, and the buildings of this neighborhood – once painted vivid colors, now faded – are visibly crumbling, but there’s a kind of decaying beauty to the Blight. Several steel-haired old ladies are leaning out their windows, chatting with each other. A gray cat is curled up atop the shell of a stone turtle that once guarded the doorway to a prosperous townhouse, though now the entrance is filled with debris. A slender black woman in dark leather is standing on a vine-wrapped balcony above us, looking down as she leans against the ancient balustrade.

  “DELIAH!” The head of every person waiting for their breakfast or walking the streets turns at once, their attention drawn by this cry.

  A man is striding down the center of the street, intent on the lamias. He’s large, though my perception of what is large has recently been influenced by my encounter with the alethian. A head taller than me, at least, and his arms look more than capable of swinging the massive ax at his waist. His hair is long and flaxen, and he’s wearing a vest of white fur that displays his impressively muscled chest and stomach. Several similar-looking men flank this fellow, though they’re all a bit smaller and less impressive.

  “DELIAH!” the man bellows again, hefting his ax as he comes closer. I slide myself in front of the lamias, wishing I hadn’t left my sword back in the room. Apparently going for breakfast can be dangerous in Ysala.

  “Lok,” Deliah says from behind me, and to my surprise I hear nothing in her voice that suggests she’s concerned about the enraged barbarian approaching us brandishing a battle ax.

  The man halts a dozen paces away, his face flushed. “You evil wench!” he fairly spits, his grip on the handle of his ax white-knuckled.

  I tense, readying to leap in front of the warrior if he lunges at Deliah. “What’s going on?”

  The man jabs a meaty finger at the lamias, but his eyes meet mine. “This heartless bitch betrayed me brother! She left him to die in the streets of Aman Kapor and went off arm-to-arm with his killer.” He cranes his neck, sweeping his sky-blue eyes over the crowd. “Where’s the biggun lizard? His skull has a meeting with me ax.”

  “R’znek is dead, Lok,” says Deliah as she moves out from behind me. I hold up my arm to keep her back but she brushes past.

  Now the barbarian really does spit, an impressive wad of phlegm that he must have been saving up for just this moment. “That’s a fair good news, though I wanted the satisfaction! Guess I’ll have to find some o’ that by cutting yer pretty head from yer shoulders.”

  Deliah had mentioned that the alethian was the second mate she had chosen, and that the first had been a cruel and stupid warrior from the north. It seems these traits run in the family.

  “Let me fetch my sword and we can settle this between us,” I say, and the barbarian glares at me.

  “I have no blood-feud with ye, silver-eyes. Ye must be her new meat – I’m warning ye, le
t me take me vengeance or ye’ll also feel the edge of me blade.”

  “Do you truly wish to do this?” Deliah asks. “We claim the protection of the Shadow Fox Trust. You could spend a month in the Maw for brawling.”

  The barbarian snarls and cuts the air with his ax. “A pox on the Trusts! The blood-price must be paid!”

  Deliah sighs and slides her long weapon from her back. “Everyone hear that?” she says loudly, and I sense she’s speaking now to the silent, watching crowd. “I am defending myself.” She twirls the poleax in a quick pattern, then sets its haft in the cobbled street.

  I try to step in front of her, but she holds out her arm to stop me. “Give me your weapon,” I say. “Let me fight him.”

  Deliah snorts. “I didn’t choose you for your protection,” she says. “And my glaive stays with me.”

  Glaive. So that’s what it’s called.

  I consider trying to convince her, but the big brute is coming closer, his ax raised.

  “Back away, Talin,” Deliah says calmly. “I wouldn’t want you to be accidentally cut in half.” Then she steps forward to meet him, her hands spaced out along the glaive like she’s holding a quarterstaff.

  The barbarian roars and swings his ax at her neck and Deliah blocks the blade with the pale gray haft of her weapon, raising a scattering of blue sparks. He hacks again and again, his momentum making her move backwards, but she turns aside each of his blows with what looks like ease. Snarling in frustration, he lunges forward; Deliah twists out of the way, letting the ax whistle past her, and when he stumbles off-balance she jabs him in the side with the tapered point at the end of her glaive.

  The barbarian’s two companions are starting to look uncomfortable. I meet the gaze of one of them and shrug.

  Any fear I’d had for Deliah’s safety is quickly vanishing. She moves like a tiger, flowing from one position to the next gracefully. The huge barbarian lashes out again, but she’s already moved, and again the butt of her glaive pokes him in the stomach.

  He pauses, panting, his hand over his belly, as if expecting to have to hold his insides from squirming out, but when he spreads his fingers and peeks down there’s only a tiny drop of blood.

  “You can still walk away, Lok,” she says. “You’re not the warrior your brother was.”

  “BITCH!” he cries, charging at her. For a moment my heart is in my throat because it seems like she won’t be able to get out of the way in time. But then she’s gone, the blade of her glaive flashing out for the first time, and he has staggered to a stop touching his chest. He turns slowly, and I see that there’s a dark slanted line running from one of his nipples to the point on his stomach where she’d pricked him.

  Heaving with rage, tears running down his face, the barbarian rushes at her again. With casual ease she sidesteps him, the curving blade of her glaive flickering out once more. A second line joins the first, starting at the other nipple and reaching down to meet at the point in his stomach. The barbarian pauses, swaying, staring down at the design she has carved into his flesh. He doesn’t even seem to notice as Deliah steps closer, though he does look up right before the haft of her glaive clubs him across the head.

  He collapses like a puppet with its strings cut.

  Before the sound of the metal ax blade ringing on the stone cobbles has faded, Deliah strides away. The silent crowd parts before her as she approaches the pancake seller, who grins at her and holds out two leaf-wrapped packets. The companions of the barbarian have rushed up to their fallen friend and are shaking him – the big fellow groans, his eyes fluttering. He won’t be doing any more fighting today.

  “You should probably drag him away from here,” Deliah says around a mouthful of egg and pancake. “The Shadow Fox will be here shortly. There are always a few patrols hanging around in the Blight.”

  I hurry up to Deliah as the barbarians follow her advice and lift the dazed Lok, struggling to support his bulk.

  “I want one of those,” I say, and Deliah holds out the leaf she hasn’t unfolded yet.

  “I meant that,” I say, gesturing at the glaive she has returned to her back, though I still accept the pancake.

  She grins at me. Her face is slightly flushed from the fight, her already-red cheeks deepening in color, and her indigo hair – which she hadn’t brushed before coming outside – is a mess of artful tangles. She looks gorgeous.

  “You’ll have to come visit Vel, then,” she says, leading us back up the stairs to the Last Word’s entrance. “My sister can make you a glaive. She’s the finest weaponsmith on the island.”

  Before we reach the pitted wooden doors, she grabs my arm and pulls me closer. “Let’s go back upstairs,” she whispers, her lips nearly brushing my ear. “Fighting always get my blood hot.”

  I’m more than amenable to this suggestion, but as we enter the tavern I catch sight of Bell seated at a table in the almost empty common room. She’s not alone.

  “Wait,” I say, changing course. “I know her.”

  Deliah gives a little growl of frustration, but she follows behind me. “Know who?”

  “Her,” I say, pointing at the woman seated beside Bell. She’s slender as a sword, with skin the color of polished onyx. The dark leather armor she’s wearing clings tightly to her, the only spots of color the silver fastenings that bind the different pieces together. It’s almost certainly the woman I’d seen standing on the balcony watching the street before the fight . . . but that had only been moments ago. Deliah had dispatched the huge warrior with impressive efficiency. How had this woman gotten down from her perch and made Bell’s acquaintance in such a short span of time?

  It even looks like their conversation has been going for quite some time, as there’s a pair of copper goblets and a bottle on the table. Just the sight of the wine makes my stomach twist again.

  “Talin,” Bell says, motioning at a chair. “Sit.”

  “A lamias,” the stranger says, looking past me. “You do keep odd company.” Her accent is strange, the words rolling around like the deck of a ship in a storm.

  “She’s not with me,” Bell says, and the woman watches me appraisingly with slanted almond eyes.

  “Then this one must be a mighty warrior,” she says, steepling her long fingers. “A valuable ally.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, pulling out a chair and sitting. “Who are you?”

  The woman offers a slight smile that does not touch her eyes. Her teeth are very white. “In the southlands I am called Xela. I have family, of course, but I shed their name when I crossed the mountains you know as the Wall.”

  “So you’re from somewhere north.”

  She looks at me oddly, and for the first time I see a little flicker of uncertainty. “Of course. Do I not look like a daughter of Grand and Enlightened Zim?”

  “He doesn’t know these lands,” Bell says quickly. “As in, truly almost nothing.” She turns to me. “Xela is in the service of the Contessa, and her mistress wishes to speak with us. Now.”

  15

  I dash up the stairs to our room, Deliah close behind me.

  “Do you trust what she says?” I ask as I slide the key in the lock and push open the door. For a moment I have the strange sensation that someone else has been inside – though, admittedly, the mess looks much the same, our bags and clothes still scattered about where they’d been tossed after we had drunkenly lurched into the room last night. I step over a pair of knee-high black leather boots and grab my scabbarded sword from where it leans against a bedpost. Deliah begins to quickly gather the pieces of her armor she’d shed as we’d made our way to the bed.

  “I have no reason not to trust her,” Deliah replies.

  That’s true, I suppose.

  “I need some armor,” I say as I buckle the sword around my waist. “Getting into fights again and again while wearing only shirts and breeches is not wise.”

  “After our meeting with the Contessa we’ll stop by a smith I know who does good work.” Deliah tightens
the strap of one of her greaves – a thin shard of iridescent black set in leather dyed the color of wine – then looks up at me and smiles. “Though, of course, you don’t have any money.”

  “Perhaps I could borrow some coin from you?”

  Her grin widens. “I’m sure I can think of some service you could render in return.”

  “I’m not sure I like the implication of what that would make me.”

  She moves on to her other greave, shrugging. “You could try begging the smith for charity.”

  There are certainly worse ways to earn a suit of armor. I scoop an oddly shaped pauldron from the floor and hold it out for her to take. I’m struck by how incredibly light the material is – it doesn’t feel like metal at all.

  “What is it made out of?” I ask as she stands and takes the twisted bit of armor from me, then clasps it to the cuirass she’s wearing.

  “Carapace,” she says. “We have some rather large insects in Vel. Don’t tell any arachnia you see though, all right? I’m not sure how sensitive they are to having their cousins worn as outer wear.”

  We follow the Contessa’s emissary outside, clattering down the tavern’s rickety steps. The breakfast crowds are still clustered around the food carts, but the dazed barbarian and his friends have vanished. In their place is an elegant carriage of lacquered golden wood drawn by a team of white stallions with silver manes. It looks decidedly out of place in the Blight.

  An older man in silver and red livery hops down from the driver’s seat and swings open the carriage’s door for us. He’s wearing a brooch that looks like a curled silver cat. A quick glance at Xela shows that she’s also wearing one of these – I’d assumed it was part of her armor’s silver fastenings. The woman from Zim leaps inside and seats herself on the plush velvet cushions. We follow, Bell settling beside Xela.