Witchsign

by Den Patrick

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Steiner.

  ‘You’ll see,’ she said with a look of regret on her broad honest face. She fumbled at the throat of her tunic for an amulet the size of a child’s fist, then pulled the chain over her head, casting a disapproving eye at the shard of worked stone. A wisp of faint yellow light writhed over the amulet, and particles of back ash danced in slow orbits.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Steiner, a terrible uneasiness over-taking him.

  ‘This,’ replied Kimi, her mouth twisting in disgust, ‘is the Ashen Torment.’ She held forth the amulet. ‘A burden they gave me to carry. It doesn’t look like much but it weighs on me all the same.’

  Steiner reached for Kimi’s hand with all the care of someone fetching a newborn. Kimi laid her palm flat and splayed her fingers. Nestled between the calluses was a cone of rock, like a stalagmite tip. A tiny dragon was wrapped around the stone, nose to tail. The carving was so fine Steiner wondered if it were real. The frail yellow light emanated from deep inside, fine lines glowing in the carving.

  ‘What does it do?’ said Steiner.

  ‘Watch,’ was all she said by way of reply, then held out the amulet at arm’s length, closing her eyes. ‘Wherever there is fire there is death,’ intoned Kimi.

  Steiner’s eyes widened as the amulet was consumed by a writhing flame. Fire danced across its surface, a match for the dragon statue in Academy Square. Steiner was no less awed at the conjuration before him.

  ‘Wherever there is fire there is death,’ she said again, eyes still closed.

  Steiner almost missed them, dark shadows against the gloom. Some emerged from cracks in the cavern floor, but most edged in from the walls. The cinderwraiths slunk and drifted back to their workstations, taking up tools in their indistinct hands, beginning the process of crafting weapons for the Empire that had killed them.

  ‘The amulet controls them,’ said Steiner.

  Kimi nodded. ‘When one says the right words, yes. This relic commands them, while another relic binds them to the island itself.’

  ‘Who made such things?’

  ‘Felgenhauer told me the Empire forced Bittervinge to craft the artefacts after they defeated him. Artefacts like this.’

  ‘Bittervinge? The father of dragons? But he’s just a folk-tale.’ Steiner stopped talking as Kimi fixed him with a look that said he should know better.

  ‘But Bittervinge was exterminated at the end of the war, along with all the other …’ Steiner paused and thought of the dragons chained up in the chamber below. He looked across the vast cavern and saw each furnace, imagining the dragon beneath it. ‘All the other dragons.’

  Kimi looked across the the many workstations and released a slow breath. ‘We don’t worship Frejna where I come from, but if she came here, looking for all the souls that are rightfully hers, well, I’d hand her this amulet in a heartbeat.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  Kimi looked at him, a weary slump to her broad shoulders. ‘Are all Northmen so literal?’

  Steiner smiled.

  ‘And how do I hand the amulet over to Frejna?’

  Steiner shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Hand it back to Felgenhauer. Refuse to carry it. Refuse to command the cinderwraiths.’

  Kimi smiled without warmth. ‘I did that once. They stopped sending food. Taiga almost died. We were all so weak. In the end I put the amulet back on just to stop her and Tief starving to death. You don’t disappoint the Matriarch-Commissar, Steiner. She has quotas to meet and the Empire will make her suffer if she’s found wanting. And that means we suffer in turn.’

  Kimi stoked the fire in her furnace, using a wooden pedal set in the floor to prod the dragon below. A jet of flame roared and the furnace door rattled on its hinges.

  ‘I’m always gentle,’ she said, noting Steiner’s shocked expression. ‘And I don’t use it unless I have to. We’re behind on swords and if things get much worse—’

  ‘Then Felgenhauer will stop sending food down to us.’

  Kimi nodded. Steiner frowned against the din of anvils, of swords being hammered into shape, more weapons for the Empire to prosecute the wars to come.

  ‘Do you think they’ll really invade Nordvlast and the Scorched Republics?’ asked Steiner.

  ‘Yes, in five years or so, after they’ve taken control of Shanisrond.’

  Steiner nodded and stared into the flickering flames of the furnace.

  ‘What are you thinking, Hammersmith?’ said Kimi.

  ‘I’m hoping Romola has set sail. I’m hoping she’s far away from this awful place.’ Most of all he hoped Shirinov hadn’t found a way to hurt Romola in retaliation for Matthias Zhirov.

  ‘I wouldn’t hope for so much,’ said Kimi. ‘Hope is burned up all too quickly in a place like this.’

  Steiner turned back to the cavern, to the scores of cinderwraiths hard at work in eternal toil and the Spriggani tending to the furnaces. The smoke and ashes billowed above in a slow roil, lifted by the stifling heat. The ruddy light of dragon and coal fire was everywhere.

  ‘I hope she gets away,’ he said, as if the words alone were enough to make it happen.

  Kimi nodded. ‘So do I, Hammersmith. So do I.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Steiner

  The increase in patrols by the Imperial Navy in the Ashen Gulf has left large expanses of the Empire’s coastline unguarded. It is for this reason that independent captains have been employed, despite the repeated recommendations of my colleague Shirinov and myself to avoid such outsiders. Trying to exert any influence over the Imperial Court at Khlystburg is almost impossible when one is consigned to Vladibogdan.

  – From the field notes of Hierarch Khigir, Vigilant of the Imperial Synod.

  Steiner need not have worried for Romola, not least because she appeared the very next day wearing a crooked smile and a sling bag hung from her shoulder. Maxim trailed behind carrying an impressive burden in his arms.

  ‘You stole an entire pig?’ Steiner looked on aghast, worried it might suddenly jump down from Maxim’s arms and start snuffling around.

  ‘And there’s a goat in the sack too, for Kimi,’ added Maxim.

  ‘“Stolen” is an unattractive word, right?’ Romola paused to look at Maxim. ‘I’m merely redistributing resources in a meaningful manner that will benefit those most in need.’

  Steiner frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Romola smiled, then cackled, and Steiner wondered if she wasn’t a little drunk or unhinged.

  ‘You know Shirinov will have you arrested if you’re found down here?’

  ‘Best I don’t get found then, right?’ Romola’s smile widened.

  ‘He was here just yesterday and it was all I could do to stop him searching your ship.’

  ‘He always wants to search my ship.’ Romola sighed. ‘The trick is to not have anything aboard that will get you into trouble.’

  They picked their way across the cavern between the many furnaces and anvils, all attended by cinderwraiths and the odd Spriggani.

  ‘If I didn’t know so much about the arcane I’d assume I’d passed on to the other side,’ said Romola. ‘Eternal punishment for the wicked, right? Isn’t that what the Holy Synod teach?’

  Maxim and Steiner said nothing. Maxim eyed the apparitions fearfully and Steiner took the pig from him. ‘They won’t hurt you,’ he whispered.

  ‘Why do they look like that?’ asked Maxim.

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted Steiner. ‘And I don’t know what the Synod teach either,’ he said to Romola. ‘Too busy working for a living to worry about all that old nonsense.’

  ‘You don’t believe in an afterlife?’ pressed Romola.

  ‘Mama says you have to live a good life,’ said Maxim. ‘Because if you don’t you’ll be re-incarcerated as a Spriggani.’

  ‘I think you mean reincarnated,’ replied Romola.

  ‘That’s what I said.’ Maxim frowned.

  ‘Well, I thin
k your mama needs to learn a few things about the world. I wouldn’t say that again down here. It won’t make you any friends.’

  ‘Ah, I didn’t mean …’

  ‘No, you didn’t, but your words did. Think more carefully before opening your mouth.’ Romola nodded at Steiner. ‘And what about you?’

  Steiner shrugged. ‘My father says people pay lip service to the old gods in the Republics. I heard the Synod has made some converts in Svingettevei, worshipping the Emperor because of some divine right to rule. Father says it’s always hard to know if a Sving is gaming with you or being straight. I’d rather go drown than kneel before the Emperor.’

  ‘Straight-talking Svings do exist,’ said Romola, leading them to the edge of the cavern. ‘Though they’re as rare as dragon‘s teeth. And there’s nothing divine about the Emperor, you only have to look at how poor the people are in Solmindre to know that. Do you know what the Spriggani believe?’

  ‘I feel like I’m speaking with my sister again,’ said Steiner, and felt a pang of loss for Kjellrunn’s ramblings.

  ‘The Spriggani believe the truly wicked spend eternity clinging to a vast cliff above a fierce ocean. Frejna sends crows to peck at their eyes and fingers each day so they fall.’

  ‘Small wonder people worship Frøya if that’s the case,’ Steiner said to Maxim.

  ‘Once they fall into the sea they are dashed upon the rocks by the restless waves,’ said Romola, leaning close to Maxim.

  ‘That doesn’t sound much like an eternity,’ said Steiner.

  ‘The following day it begins all over again,’ explained Romola. ‘Those souls who were less wicked have to watch their loved ones die over and over.’

  ‘What happens to the good people?’ asked Maxim.

  ‘The good people?’ Romola smiled again. ‘Frøya sends the good people wily storyweavers who bring food and good cheer.’

  ‘And how blessed we are.’ Steiner shook his head. ‘Where are we going, Romola?’

  ‘Somewhere we can cook this meat.’

  The fissure in the rock was not so very different to the entrance of Steiner’s cave, but the passage beyond was tight and winding. Romola sang softly, holding up a lantern.

  ‘Now there’s a thing worth seeing,’ muttered Steiner. The ceiling of the cave was studded with purpled quartz, like strange stars glittering in a stony sky. Still water occupied the end of the cave, reflecting more of the lantern light.

  ‘Are we still underground?’ asked Maxim.

  ‘We are. Though you’d never know it.’

  Steiner set down the pig and looked around in awe.

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there.’ Romola removed the sling bag and threw it towards Steiner. He caught it, despite the weight.

  ‘Have a care, won’t you? What’s this?’

  ‘Firewood.’ Romola grinned. ‘You don’t want to eat raw pork, right?’

  The pig took forever to cook, even with the spit and fire pit that remained from an earlier meet. The fire burned more keenly after Steiner returned with a bucket of coal.

  ‘You’ve been here before then?’ said Steiner after the fire was fully ablaze.

  ‘Of course. It’s one of my favourite places.’ Romola turned her face towards the roof. ‘It’s away from the listening ears at the academy. And you can lie back with a full belly and imagine you’re gazing at the night sky.’

  ‘I thought you said you’d never got any further onto the island than the gatehouse,’ said Steiner.

  ‘And I meant it.’ Romola nodded. ‘I didn’t say anything about the island underneath the gatehouse.’

  ‘Won’t your crew miss you?’ asked Steiner.

  ‘My crew know better than to ask too many questions.’

  ‘How are things up there?’ Steiner turned to Maxim, who was peeling potatoes with deft motions, slicing them small and adding them to a pot of simmering water.

  ‘At the academy?’ Maxim released a weary sigh that belonged to someone twice his age. ‘I learn more each day. Shirinov and Felgenhauer loathe each other, of course.’

  ‘Anyone with eyes can see that,’ replied Steiner. The boy frowned back at him.

  ‘What you won’t know,’ said Maxim, ‘is that Shirinov and Khigir weren’t supposed to be in Cinderfell. They were investigating something in Helwick.’

  ‘I’ve heard of it,’ replied Steiner, thinking of Verner’s deception. Ah, it was nothing, nothing important. I just took some smoked fish to market.

  ‘They say Khigir’s sister was murdered. The older children, I mean novices, they say she could control the air.’

  ‘Just rumours, I expect,’ said Steiner, though he couldn’t be sure why he was so keen to pour cold water on the boy’s tale.

  ‘They’re not rumours,’ replied Maxim. ‘The older novices heard it from Marozvolk. Silverdust said it too. And Cryptfrost lost her temper when she overheard some boys talking about it.’

  ‘So what else did they say?’ said Steiner, fearing that Verner might soon find himself hunted by the Synod, assuming he was still alive.

  ‘Silverdust said Corpsecandle’s sister sent a whisper with her dying breath and Khigir and Shirinov left at once to try and find the killer.’

  The fire crackled and popped and Steiner rubbed the calluses on his fingers, thinking of his father and Verner the last time he’d seen them on the pier.

  ‘They used to be part of a Troika, you see?’ Maxim was still peeling potatoes, reeling off the tale as if he’d been doing this very thing all his life. ‘One Vigilant specializes in fire.’

  ‘Khigir,’ said Steiner. Maxim nodded.

  ‘One specializes in earth.’

  ‘Shirinov.’

  ‘And one specializes in air. The novices called her Sharpbreath, but she preferred Sister Khigir.’

  Steiner glanced at Romola, who had said nothing, idly poking the fire with the tip of a long knife.

  ‘But Sister Khigir went to Arkiv Island many years ago,’ said Maxim. ‘They say she wasn’t the same after. She formed a new Troika and Corpsecandle never quite got over it.’

  Pirate, blacksmith and boy worked at the meal, slicing carrots and leeks. Sometimes grumbling, sometimes dashing away tears brought on by diced onions. Steiner couldn’t help but think of home, though this was far from the orderly kitchen he’d grown up in.

  ‘The thing I don’t understand,’ he said, when the vegetables were all safely in a pot, ‘is why a Troika consists of wind, fire and earth? Why does no one use the power of water?’

  Romola had lain back with her head on a pack, eyes heavy-lidded, while Maxim was engaged in the time-honoured tradition of poking the fire’s coals for no noticeably good reason.

  ‘Water is the province of Frøya, and Frøya alone.’ Romola stifled a yawn. ‘The Vigilants say wind, fire and earth are powers derived from dragons. The Emperor has always seen the arcane as a challenge to his authority. And those powers he can’t control he prohibits.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ grumbled Steiner. ‘Why have an academy dedicated to water if the Emperor has forbidden such powers?’

  ‘They hope to have some sort of breakthrough,’ said Romola. ‘If they can harness the powers of the ocean then the war in Shanisrond will be much easier. So far they’ve not been successful. Let’s hope it stays that way.’

  Steiner didn’t have a chance to press her on the subject, as heavy footfalls echoed down the corridor.

  ‘Soldiers,’ breathed Steiner, remembering the score escorting the Vigilants down the day before.

  ‘Soldiers?’ Maxim looked around the cave, eyes frantic. He scrambled to his feet. ‘They mustn’t find me!’

  ‘I knew I should have brought the sledge,’ grunted Steiner.

  ‘People will do anything for a free meal,’ said Romola, sliding her sword from the scabbard.

  The noise came closer, heavy footfalls that must surely belong to a man in armour. Steiner imagined the red star at the brow of the helm, spiked mace promising a pain
ful death, chain mail glittering in the darkness.

  ‘I can’t believe you thought you could cook an entire pig without me,’ said Kimi as she stepped into the light. Steiner and Maxim released a tense breath.

  ‘I’m trying to feed the boy up is all,’ replied Romola. ‘And give him an education.’

  ‘Education is good,’ agreed Kimi, sitting cross-legged by the fire. ‘But the whole pig?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I brought something for you too.’ Maxim hefted the sack with both arms, struggling under the weight.

  ‘I’m going to enjoy this,’ said Kimi, pulling the goat free of the sack by its neck. ‘How are you?’

  Steiner eyed the spit and the fat that sizzled in the fire. ‘Better than yesterday,’ he said, though it was Matthias Zhirov’s face he saw in the dancing flames.

  The meal proved to be both long and glorious, with second and third helpings. Romola regaled them with stories of sailing the various seas and oceans surrounding Vinterkveld while Kimi ate half the goat, and tried to decide how to hide the rest.

  It was almost perfect.

  They had headed out into the cavern to say their goodbyes when the soldiers returned. At a distance they appeared as disembodied helms, their red stars bright in the glow of lanterns held high. Romola became very still, watching their approach.

  ‘As final meals go, it will have to do,’ she said to no one in particular.

  ‘Steiner,’ whispered Maxim. ‘I’m scared. What will happen to us?’

  ‘You’d best hope the Matriarch-Commissar can intervene,’ said Steiner, ‘or else we’re all in for a long conversation with Shirinov.’

  ‘One of these days I’m going to get even …’ but anything else Romola said was drowned out by the stamp of booted feet and clatter of armour. The cinderwraiths paused as the procession of armoured men marched past. The dozen Spriggani on duty scurried away to safety. A trio of soldiers carried pikes, all levelled at Kimi who growled curse words in her mother tongue.

  ‘Hoy there!’ said Steiner, stepping forward. ‘Tell us your business before pointing those things at my friend.’

  ‘Have a care, Steiner,’ said Romola, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘This isn’t about you.’ She drew her sword from the scabbard slowly and surrendered the blade to the nearest of the soldiers. ‘Let’s do this quietly. No one needs to be hurt on my account, right? They’re just children, after all.’