The Rose of the World

by Jude Fisher

  This scenario was not playing itself out at all as Erno had expected. He felt suddenly foolish, out of his depth. He had thought to make a trade with a distraught and loving father; not a reptilian creature with all its thoughts bent on satisfying some immediate and perverse lust.

  ‘Unhood yourself,’ the Lord of Cantara demanded. ‘Let me see who it is who dares to thrust himself past my guard and into my private quarters at such an hour.’

  Slowly, Erno drew back his hood.

  Tycho took in the visitor’s ill-dyed mane of hair, his light eyes and strong jaw. ‘What is your name?’

  Erno had prepared for this. ‘Alesto Karo,’ he said.

  ‘Your parents had a fondness for sacred poetry, did they?’ the Lord of Cantara spat venemously.

  Erno nodded, disconcerted by the man’s response. He had taken the name from one of the best-known ancient Istrian ballads, a lay so popular it was recited even by the northern bards. Alesto – the mortal man plucked from Elda to pleasure the Goddess herself, who had sacrificed himself in her fires for her love. It had seemed quaintly appropriate at the time.

  But Tycho Issian’s face had become dark with blood, as if a storm were brewing inside him. A moment later it was unleashed. ‘You think to steal my goddess, do you?’ he roared. ‘You come here offering lies and extortion in the presence of this vision! You slimy worm, you fetid toad, you filthy snake! Alesto the Lover, indeed. More like Alesto the Crawler! You are not fit to lick the soles of her feet – you . . . you . . . dungbeetle!’

  Erno swung around to see to whom the madman could be referring, and saw only the draped figure by the door. Confusion set in; then with a horrible rush of intuition he could not explain, he knew her. ‘Katla!’ he cried in Eyran ‘Is that you?’

  There came a sharp intake of breath from the figure. Then it simply said, ‘Erno . . .’

  His heart ignited. He whirled around only to find the Lord of Cantara advancing upon him murderously, the front of his robe thrust out by some giant erection. Now Erno saw the imminent danger Katla faced; and at the same time cared nothing for the peril he was himself in. In fact, he realised, he cared nothing for anything or anyone beyond Katla Aransen at this moment. If he could only save her, the rest of the world could burn . . .

  He put his hands out in a placatory gesture.

  ‘My lord, I have not finished with my bargaining—’

  This drew Tycho up short. He stared at the man called Alesto suspiciously.

  ‘I know that your lordship is engaged upon a holy war with the North,’ Erno said as quickly as his facility with the Old Tongue would allow him. ‘I have heard tell of a mighty weapon which would help you win this war. An artefact which has the power – they say – over life and death.’

  Both Virelai and Saro became deathly still; and as if sensing their attention, Tycho listened.

  ‘It is a moodstone, graced by the touch of the Goddess, to become what the hill-people call a deathstone. It can heal the sick and raise the dead. It can strike men down in their tracks. Imagine what you could do with such an object, such a weapon. I know a man who could lead you to it, if you will only give me the girl—’

  ‘No!’

  It was a wail of inhuman despair. Behind the Lord of Cantara and the man who would trade all Elda for the sake of a single woman, there was a sudden blur of motion. Then with savage strength, Saro Vingo pushed the Istrian lord aside, his face a mask of hatred, and hurled himself at Erno Hamson. His arm came back and then descended as fast as a striking hawk, and the candles in the chamber lent whatever it was he held in his hand a wild blue light.

  It all happened so quickly that Erno had no understanding of what had transpired. It was as if one of Sur’s lightning bolts had struck him out of a clear sky. He swayed where he stood, blinking stupidly through a thick curtain of blood, trying to recall what it was he had been saying, and why, but all he could think of was sitting on the mole at Rockfall harbour on a late autumn evening, fishing for crabs with a girl whose hair flared crimson in the dying sun, wanting to lean over and kiss her, but fearing that if he did so he would spoil the moment.

  That perfect moment.

  A slow, rapturous smile spread itself across his face. ‘Ah, Katla,’ he whispered, ‘Katla . . .’ And then he crashed to the floor, his cloak billowing up and over his ruined head like the wings of a crow mantling over its kill.

  For two – three – seconds no one moved. Then Katla Aransen leapt across the space between her and the fallen man and with a single practised motion swept the exposed greatsword from the scabbard across the dead man’s back. It was too big for her, and heavier than she had expected; but even so, the weapon sang in her hands, a fire which burned up her arms.

  The Lord of Cantara had no hesitation in saving his own neck. He grabbed Saro Vingo and shoved him at the robed woman with all his might. Saro went stumbling, the bloodstained paperweight flying from his hand to shatter into a thousand bright blue shards against the far wall, and collapsed in a heap at Katla’s feet. There, instead of hurling himself upright again or trying to escape, he knelt on the floor, breathing hard, his throat stretched out and vulnerable, his hands spread, willing her to deal him the death he deserved.

  For a long moment they gazed at one another. Saro could feel the heat of her loathing scorching through the azure veil. He waited for the killing stroke to fall.

  And Katla would gladly have dealt him the death he sought, were it not for the sudden appearance of the guard.

  ‘Don’t kill her!’ shrieked Tycho Issian.‘Just get the damned sword away from her—’

  Berio looked at Katla, a bizarre apparition in azure silk. Istrian women knew nothing about swords – you could tell by the way she was holding it. He laughed. He had been interrupted by a shout just as he was in the pleasurable process of taking a dump; which was in itself annoying – but to be interrupted just to disarm some loopy whore was beyond a joke.

  ‘Come on, love,’ he said reasonably, advancing on her with his own weapon in his hand. ‘Drop the sword.’

  His patronising tone infuriated Katla, even if the foreign words were no more than a jumble of sound. With a howl of rage she ran at him and took his arm off neatly at the elbow, sword and all. It described a graceful arc, gouting an elegant fountain of blood through the air, and landed at Virelai’s feet, spattering gore up the front of his robe. The sorcerer – already deathly sallow – paled further; and fainted.

  More guards were coming: with the preternatural senses of a woman suddenly eager for survival, she could hear their footsteps on the stairs. She glared at the southern lord, at the boy kneeling on the floor, at the fallen sorcerer, the dying guard. Bending swiftly, she pulled back the cloak and kissed the dead man gently on the forehead.

  ‘Erno Hamson: I will avenge you, I swear it.’

  Then she turned and ran, the greatsword tucked awkwardly under her arm.

  Saro Vingo cast one wild look at Virelai’s still form, then another at Tycho Issian, standing stunned as if by the sight of so much blood, so close to his own precious person, and fled after Katla Aransen.

  He caught up with her in the stairwell, facing off a pair of uniformed guards, bemused by the sight of a silk-shrouded houri wielding a huge and gory sword. As it was, the greatsword was not an ideal weapon in such an enclosed space, but the guards seemed to be making up their minds to deal with the bizarre situation. The first one drew his own sword – a stubby, brutal-looking thing – and advanced up the stairs. Made nervous by the sudden appearance of Saro in her peripheral vision, Katla lunged forward with a swiftness the guard had little expected and stuck him with considerable precision through the neck. Cartilage creaked and parted. Blood fountained. Kicking his flailing body off the point of her blade into the path of his companion, she spun around, teeth bared at Saro like a beast at bay. Red-streaked and lethal, the greatsword hovered suddenly at his own throat.

  ‘Tell me why I should not kill you!’ she demanded fiercely.

&
nbsp; ‘If you kill me, I cannot save the world.’

  ‘A large claim.’ Through the azure veil, eyes glittered balefully. ‘I have sworn to avenge my friend, who came to save me.’

  Saro looked anguished. ‘I had no choice. Oh—’

  Tycho Issian had emerged from his chamber into the shadows at the end of the passage, a curved and wicked-looking blade in his hand.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve any more useful paperweights?’ Katla asked scornfully. In the same breath, she kicked out at the second man, catching him on the kneecap so that he swore and lowered his guard. The angle was too narrow for the greatsword. Frustrated, Katla shoved past him like a charging bull and sprang down the remaining stairs. ‘All yours!’ she called back over her shoulder.

  Saro regarded the recovering guard nervously: what use was weapons training when you had no weapon? In desperation, he drew himself up and adopted his loathsome brother’s haughtiest tone. ‘For Falla’s sake, man, get out of the way!’

  Born to a life in service in that most orthodox of cities, the guard all but bowed and stepped aside politely. If the man had had a forelock, he’d most likely have tugged it.

  Taking his opportunity, Saro dived after Katla, stopping only to retrieve the dead guard’s sword.

  The Eyran girl ran on to the end of the passage and down another flight of stairs, a blaze of azure against the dark sandstone walls. Down here on the second level of the castle, where visiting nobility usually stayed, all was silent and dark, since no one had bothered to light the sconces. Neither had they stationed any guards on this floor; but pursuit was not far behind, and Saro had little more idea of the way out than the robed woman who ran grimly beside him. They passed door after door, but instead of checking for a possible escape route, Katla just kept running. At last, turning a tight corner, the greatsword caught in the billowing blue robe and tripped her headlong, then spun away from her with a clatter fit to wake the dead.

  ‘Sur’s bollocks!’

  A moment later she was on her feet, seething with bad temper. She tore the veil from the rest of the sabatka with a vicious rip, revealing ragged hair of barely shoulder length, distinctly more red now than gold. Then she grabbed up the back hem of the robe and knotted it up at her waist, transforming it into a most outlandish garment indeed. Grinning triumphantly, she reached to retrieve the blade, only to find it in Saro’s hands.

  At once, she sprang at him, a bundle of coiled energy, Eyran obscenities pouring from her. Hatred seemed to crackle from her skin, her hair, her eyes: she looked wild, foreign, mad, possessed.

  Saro backed away, terrified. The images coming at him from contact with the greatsword were bewildering, unspeakable. He held it out to her unsteadily: an offering to propitiate a primal force of nature.

  ‘Here, take it. I only picked it up for you—’

  Their eyes locked, and in that moment Saro acknowledged that the dream he had hugged to himself of the girl he had encountered at the Allfair was just that: a figment, a construction of his own feverish mind. The sight of the figure which had stood in defiant challenge on top of Falla’s Rock, her hair a nimbus of fire, her naked limbs gleaming in the early morning sun, had all but stopped his heart. The memory of those sea-grey eyes and those arched kestrel-wing brows had visited him in his sleep night after night after night. He had, he admitted, harboured secret desires for her in life; then mourned her in what he had thought to be her death. Now, confronted with the unpredictable and elemental truth of her – more goddess than girl – he knew he had deceived himself if he had ever imagined they might be together.

  She took the sword from him gravely, her fury ebbing as swiftly as it had risen; and as her anger ebbed so did Virelai’s illusion, and she was Katla Aransen once more. But the delay had proved lethal. Within seconds, Tycho Issian came hurtling around the corner, knife at full stretch before him, followed by a contingent of guards.

  Katla grabbed Saro by the arm and together they flew around the next bend in the corridor, only to be confronted by a dead end with a door set in it. A locked door. Katla wrenched at the handle, but the effort was futile. They turned and faced their pursuers, swords drawn.

  ‘To die like this,’ Saro said through gritted teeth, ‘would be a good end.’ He was surprised to find he meant it.

  Katla flashed him a feral grin. ‘Get ready to die, then, but don’t forget to take as many of the bastards with you as you can!’

  Seeing that the pair meant to make a serious fight of it, Tycho Issian allowed the guards to overtake him. It had not escaped his attention that the goddess he had been preparing to mount had somehow been transformed into a dreadful red-headed hoyden. His interest in keeping her alive wilted abruptly. ‘Kill them both!’ he ordered and left the militiamen to do just that. He had seen enough blood for one day.

  Despite the odds, this task was not to be easily achieved. The passage was too narrow for the Jetrans to come at them more than two abreast. Katla ran at the first pair, shrieking like a banshee. A spatter of hot blood hit Saro’s face, making him blink in shocked stupefaction. He had no more time to register the mashing sweep of Katla’s greatsword or the vile sight of brain through bone as the first guard toppled before the second man was upon him. With sheer gut instinct, he raised the purloined weapon and iron screamed on iron. The force of the parry numbed him so that he almost dropped the sword, but the killing stroke was deflected. Throwing out a wild hand for balance, his fingers brushed Katla Aransen’s bare arm, transferring instantly to him a rage and confidence he knew was not his own. Whatever its source, it saved his life. With a skill and speed that should never have been possible for Captain Galo Bastido’s worst pupil, he feinted left and brought the tip of his sword up under the guard’s right arm, skewering him so hard through the ribs that the air came whistling out of his lungs and he slumped forward onto Saro.

  The rush of the man’s death stymied him so that he stood there for precious seconds under that weight, absorbing his agony and despair. It was Katla who kicked the dying man clear; but a moment later two other guards had taken his place, and more crowded in behind them. Soon, it was hard to find sufficient space in which to wield the length of the greatsword. With a curse, Katla relinquished it to the flagstones and swiped up one of the fallen guards’ shortswords instead. This she swept about with such ferocity that the men were forced to retreat a pace, then two, until they were backing into one another, losing their balance, cursing. When disarray turned to complete shambles their sergeant barked something at them and they all pressed themselves back against the walls, leaving the ground clear between the officer and their quarry.

  The sergeant lowered his crossbow at Katla, grinning. ‘Seems a shame to shoot you dead, lovely,’ he leered. ‘Perhaps we’ll just wing ya and have some fun.’ Then he turned the weapon on Saro. ‘Not much use for you, though, son: none of my lads fancies arse much.’ He wound back the mechanism with slow deliberation.

  Behind the sergeant, there was a movement in the shadows, and abruptly the point of a blade appeared through the front of his tunic, so that it rapidly changed colour from fine Jetran blue to sodden red. As he toppled, his bulky shape was replaced by the lithe form of a hillman, withdrawing his elegant desert blade with economic grace; and behind him came a figure out of nightmare, its sharpened teeth gleaming in the darkness; then a small fat man, a tall gaunt one, and the looming figure of a giant.

  ‘I think the odds are a bit fairer now, don’t you?’ Mam jeered. Hot wafts of beer breath filled the narrow space they shared.

  The guards turned to defend themselves; but half of them were drunker even than the mercenaries, the rest barely awake and one pissed himself in terror, even as two blades pierced him, front and back.

  Twenty-four

  The melting pot

  The messenger from Forent arrived the next day. The missive he carried was both brief and to the point. An expeditionary force was ready to set sail and awaited only the presence of joint-commander Tycho Issian,
with or without his sorcerer. Despite the arrogant tone of what was in effect a summons, the Lord of Cantara sensed Rui Finco’s glee, and his impatience. He had a plan, he was confident of success; they must strike swiftly.

  Tycho Issian was not convinced. Still inflamed by his sight of the transformed woman the night before, he found himself in turmoil. He must capture the Rosa Eldi to keep his sanity; but in order to keep her, they would have to subdue the barbarians entirely. And what of this ‘deathstone’ of which the intruder had spoken?

  A mighty weapon . . . an artefact with power over both life and death.

  He would have scoffed at the very idea had not the Vingo boy leapt up and struck the man down before he could say more. For a mild-mannered lad, Saro had shown admirably murderous zeal; but whether he had been spurred to the deed to make the man silent, or because he had perceived his outland origins was likely to remain a mystery. It was a great shame he had made his escape: on the one hand he would have been well employed on any foray into enemy territory; and on the other, he might have cast more light on the matter of this killing-stone. Tycho felt his fingers itch at the very thought of wielding such ultimate force. He had never regarded himself as a power-hungry man. Fervent, yes; and pious. Between them, he and the boy’s brother, Tanto Vingo, had brought hundreds of souls to stoke Falla’s fires before the cripple had been so untimely dispatched to join them.

  But how many more might he be able to offer the Lady if he had dominion over all of Elda? And how better to achieve such dominion than by laying his hands on a magical weapon?

  Since Virelai and Saro appeared to have struck up an unusually close friendship, he had taken the precaution of having the sorcerer confined to the rack while he was still unconscious. With Saro gone and Virelai a natural coward, he was sure a judicious turn or two of the screws would render up further information about the stone . . .

  ‘He was obsessed, besotted.’

  ‘He spoke of nothing else.’