Witchsign

by Den Patrick

  Vigilant Khigir stood in the doorway, tongues of flickering fire dancing about the floor, making the room bright.

  ‘Corpsecandle,’ said Steiner from between gritted teeth. He narrowed his eyes and blinked. The Vigilant’s flames were too bright for eyes that had known days of darkness. Khigir dragged a chair with him, the wooden legs protesting on the flagstones, much too loud after the abundance of silence in the dim circular cell.

  ‘Bastard boy of Cinderfell,’ said Khigir in his maudlin tone. The chair was positioned in the centre of the room, and after a brief examination of the prisoner, the Vigilant sat down.

  ‘Shirinov’s shadow,’ said Steiner. He turned his eyes away from the frowning, pitted mask, away from the Vigilant’s scrutiny. His breathing was too loud and his heart raced.

  ‘She was much like you,’ said the Vigilant after a pause. ‘Chained up in this very room. Shirinov chooses not to remember those times, but I do. Sometimes they would let me visit her.’

  Steiner shook his arm but the chain held fast and his wrist bled from the effort. ‘Shut up, I don’t want to hear it.’

  But Corpsecandle continued. ‘I know her by another name. Sharpbreath was my sister, younger than me in much the same way Kjellrunn is younger than you.’

  ‘Shut up. I don’t want to hear about your sister.’

  ‘I too felt protective.’ Khigir nodded. ‘Just as you do, but she was always a danger to herself. Much like your sister, I imagine.’

  ‘Why was she was chained up?’ Steiner eyed the shackle and his own red-raw wrist in disbelief.

  ‘Every few years, perhaps once a decade, a child comes to Vladibogdan, a child with much power. These children have a nuance for the arcane far beyond their years. They can call on an element as if it were old friend, not the enigmatic power so many struggle to bend to their will. A tiny proportion of these children also have principles, fostering a hatred for the Empire that borders on insanity. A fanaticism, if you will.’

  ‘Your sister …?’

  The Vigilant nodded thoughtfully. ‘The Patriarch who ran Vladibogdan chained her in this cell until she could be broken. Sharpbreath was starved for days at a time, or they made it so she could not sleep. Sometimes the methods were physical, other times they tortured her with the arcane.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ said Steiner.

  ‘I am telling you this because she did break in the end, Steiner Vartiainen. She became a talented Vigilant with fine mastery of wind. She also became loyal to the Solmindre Empire. She understood that witchsign left unchecked could be dangerous. She understood that without the purity of order there can be only chaos and ruin. She understood sacrifices have to be made along the way. Those too weak to bear the glorious burden of Empire will be snuffed out by its greatness.’

  ‘Any great country that has to kill its own people to remain great is missing the point.’ Steiner curled his lip and wished his sledgehammer was nearby.

  ‘Sacrifices must be made,’ said Khigir, leaning forward on the chair. The flames by his feet flickered in agitation. ‘Kjellrunn will be tested for witchsign. The Matriarch-Commissar prevented Shirinov from doing it, but it will happen, Steiner. It is for the best. Can you not see it?’

  ‘I can see twisted old Vigilants taking children from their families. I can see an Empire spreading lies. I can see a pathetic old man who didn’t do enough to protect his sister.’

  Corpsecandle lurched to his feet and the tongues of fire grew brighter, taller. His hands flexed and flames sprang into life around his fingers, roiling and twisting in orange and white.

  ‘We will break you, Steiner. And we will break Kjellrunn too. All bravado fails before the might of the Solmindre Empire. You will swear loyalty or you will perish. It is too late for your father, but you might try to save yourself.’

  ‘My father?’

  ‘We know he was connected to the murder in Helwick. We know he has been engaged in correspondence with the Matriarch-Commissar. We rifled her room two nights ago.’

  ‘What correspondence?’ asked Steiner. ‘My father doesn’t know who Felgenhauer is.’ But Marek had always kept his secrets; this might yet be another one.

  ‘She hid letters and locked them up well,’ said Corpsecandle, ‘but Shirinov was thorough. We found them in the end.’

  ‘Shirinov,’ Steiner sneered. ‘He’s more insane than you are.’

  ‘Shirinov has been waiting years for this. His demotion at your hands only made him more determined, just as I am determined to find my sister and bring her back to the Empire.’

  Steiner pressed himself against the wall as the Vigilant stepped forward, holding up hands consumed by flame. The heat made his skin prickle and the faint smell of singeing hair drifted on his senses.

  ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ protested Steiner. ‘I don’t know anything. Just leave my sister alone!’ But Khigir did not withdraw, holding out fiery palms to each side of Steiner’s face. Sweat ran and hair singed, his breath quickened with panic, but there was no escape from the room, the shackle, or the Vigilant before him. Steiner stared into the frowning mask, watching the fire reflect from the pitted brow. The eye holes held only darkness, and Steiner imagined his ears, crisping, melting, burning.

  ‘I don’t know anything about Helwick,’ shouted Steiner, ‘I just worked in the smithy. I don’t know anything about Sharpbreath.’

  ‘You filthy Nordvlast swine took her from me. You vermin of the Scorched Republics. Why can you not see our desire for a unified Empire is just and proper? All countries must be joined in service to the Emperor.’

  ‘Hierarch Khigir.’ A voice from outside the cell. The Vigilant straightened and turned to the source of the interruption. A soldier stood in the doorway, helm removed and lodged under one arm. He looked from Steiner to the Vigilant and cleared his throat. He wasn’t a Solmindre man, the sandy blonde hair and beard along with pale blue eyes marked him as one from Vannerånd or Drakefjord.

  ‘The supply ship is here,’ he said in Nordvlast. ‘A few days early. It will dock in the next few hours. Ordinary Shirinov requests your presence at once.’

  Steiner looked from soldier to Vigilant and felt sweat roll down his neck and cheeks. Khigir swept from the room, igniting the chair as went, leaving it to flame and smoke. The soldier remained, anxious eyes moving from burning chair to prisoner.

  ‘How can you serve them when they do this to people?’ said Steiner after a moment.

  ‘You speak as if I had a choice,’ said the soldier, shaking his head. The soldier left and Steiner wondered just how long it would take for Shirinov to depart for Cinderfell.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Steiner

  Many Vigilants cling to the hope that their remains are interred beneath the catacombs of the Imperial Palace in Khlystburg. In this way they pretend to some measure of immortality, hoping to be remembered in the ages to come. However, for every loyal comrade who takes his rest in the capital, there are three Vigilants lost to foreign battlefields or darker intrigues.

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

  Steiner dragged himself upright. Sweat cooled on skin that had come painfully close to being burned just moments before. He dared to look through the narrow window and pressed his forehead against cool stone.

  ‘Dammit.’ He closed his eyes, confirming what he feared most. The sea was choppy but no impediment for the Imperial galley that crashed through wave after wave, white sails billowing in the high wind.

  Steiner rattled his chain and inspected the lock but escape was impossible – he’d need tools, not chilled fingers, to slip free. The ship continued closing on the island and Steiner’s heart turned to stone. His hands curled about the chain and he strained and yanked and swore as hard as he could. The metal links held fast, refusing to surrender their purchase, embedded in the tower wall.

  A fiery glow startled him, turning his attention from narrow window to gloomy cell. He�
�d expected to find Corpsecandle, and was surprised to find a cinderwraith looming at his shoulder, the orange coals of its eyes a steady light in the half light.

  ‘I’d forgotten you were here.’ Steiner turned back to the window and eyed the approaching ship. ‘Shirinov is going to use that ship to get to the mainland.’ Steiner wondered if the cinderwraith could understand him, but carried on talking regardless. ‘I have to get back to protect my family.’

  The cinderwraith nodded and they looked out at a sea of dark green and surging cobalt, the Imperial ship edging closer.

  ‘And not just my family, but everyone in Cinderfell and Helwick.’ Steiner tugged at the chain. ‘I’d stop the Vigilants from taking any Nordvlast children if I could.’ The cinderwraith was so close he could smell the ashes and the tang of heated metal. So like the smells of his father’s forge, the scent calmed him and he began to think more clearly. He thought of Kimi and the amulet she wore. ‘I’d set the cinderwraiths free too,’ he whispered, ‘and I think I know how.’

  The cinderwraith retreated from him, drifting towards the door, but did not take its eyes from Steiner.

  ‘I’d even set the dragons free if I could.’ The ship was close now, so close he could see the crew on deck, all going about their tasks in the fine rain, the same crew that would ferry Shirinov back to Cinderfell. ‘They’re hardly the fierce monsters of legend, are they?’ But when he turned the cinderwraith was no longer there, not lurking in the shadows or hiding behind the door.

  ‘You might have cared to say you were leaving.’ Steiner slumped down against the wall, surrendering to futility. ‘It’s not even a terribly well-made chain,’ he said, noting the craftsmanship.

  The door opened once more. The brief flicker of hope that Steiner dared to kindle was soon extinguished as Aurelian slouched into the room. His was a victorious smile, pale eyes full of gloating.

  ‘You should try being imprisoned,’ said Steiner. ‘I’ve never had so many guests.’

  ‘Guests?’ Aurelian looked a touch less sure of himself.

  ‘Mainly guests in masks,’ said Steiner, trying not to think of Khigir’s fiery interrogation. ‘And now I have to look at your stupid face.’

  ‘I thought it would be good manners to come and say my farewells.’ Aurelian flashed another grin as the colour drained from Steiner’s face.

  ‘You’re leaving?’ He could hardly bring himself to say the words.

  ‘Not leaving, Steiner.’ Aurelian waggled a chiding a finger. ‘No one leaves Vladibogdan. Surely you, of all people, know that by now.’ He paced across the cell and turned back to Steiner. ‘But Hierarch Shirinov—’

  ‘You mean Ordinary Shirinov,’ said Steiner. ‘Felgenhauer demoted him.’

  ‘Ah, Felgenhauer.’ Aurelian smiled. ‘She’s not going to be around forever, Steiner. What am I saying? She’s not even here right now, is she? And Shirinov has no intention of letting his demotion stand.’

  Steiner nodded. He’d always known it would come to this. How those worries had gnawed at him, more than the meagre food and heavy work, more than missing his family and home.

  ‘Don’t hurt Kjellrunn, Aurelian. She’s just—’

  ‘A child? We’re all children, Steiner.’ Aurelian placed his hands on his hips and gave a wicked grin. ‘And if I have to live on this hateful island then so can she. No exceptions, Steiner. The Empire doesn’t allow it. The Emperor won’t tolerate it, and neither will I.’

  The door slammed shut before Steiner could respond. He shook his head and curled up against the wall, shivering and cursing silently. In time he settled into a doze but the sound of the waves and the rain entered his dreams, leaving him sick and wretched on waking. A soldier had dragged a brazier in while he’d been asleep and a blanket had been placed around his shoulders.

  ‘Perhaps not everyone in the Empire is so terrible after all.’ And for some reason this bothered him more than he could articulate. Steiner hobbled from his place beside the wall, his feet a bright pain of pins and needles, his fingers nearly numb with cold. He squatted closer to the brazier and held out a shaking hand. His imagination swept down the many staircases of House Zemlya and into Academy Square, further still to Temnet Cove where the Imperial galley would be tying up alongside the pier. He imagined the supplies brought ashore by the sailors; Shirinov insisting he speak with the captain immediately. At no point did Steiner imagine escaping; he could not guess how he might stop this flow of events, chained and alone as he was.

  A dull thump from outside made Steiner jerk upright, almost tripping over the chain. There was a shout in Solska, then another dull thump, the sound of metal on stone.

  ‘What in Frøya’s name …?’

  It was then that the cell door rattled on its hinges from a heavy strike. The second blow split the door down the middle, showering splinters of wood everywhere. Steiner held up a hand to his face and blinked. Standing in the doorway, looming over the ruined timber, was Kimi, bearing his sledgehammer, and she was not alone.

  ‘We could have used the keys, halfhead!’ scolded Tief. ‘You just knocked the guard out. Look, here they are!’ Tief clambered through the shattered door with the aforementioned keys clasped in his fist before scowling over his shoulder. Kimi kicked at the remaining wood, taking a certain pleasure in it if Steiner guessed right.

  ‘Knock, knock,’ she said, grinning, then stooped beneath the lintel and into the cell, followed by three cinderwraiths.

  ‘Is it true?’ said Tief.

  ‘What?’ Steiner looked at them with wide eyes. ‘Is what true?’

  ‘You told one of the cinderwraiths you could free them,’ said Kimi, her eyes full of wariness.

  ‘Yes.’ Steiner shrugged. ‘I think so.’

  ‘You think so?’ said Tief, his tone disbelieving.

  ‘Why have you come here?’ said Steiner.

  ‘We came because some damn fool boy told one of the cinderwraiths he was going to free them from an eternity of toil and imprisonment.’ Tief glowered at Steiner. ‘All these lost souls have done nothing since you made your proclamation. No work means no weapons. No weapons means no food.’

  ‘I didn’t tell them to stop work.’

  ‘What were you thinking?’ Tief stamped his foot and shouted into Steiner’s face. ‘They’re calling it a strike. And they’ve organized themselves, call themselves the Ashen Court.’ More cinderwraiths crowded into the room, as if on cue.

  ‘I know about the Ashen Court,’ admitted Steiner.

  ‘How do you know? You’ve been locked in a cell for four days.’

  Steiner shrugged.

  ‘They’ve been meeting for a while,’ said Kimi, ‘conversing among themselves.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Steiner regarded the many cinderwraiths crowding into the cell. ‘They can’t speak.’

  ‘They’ve started writing in the coal dust,’ said Kimi. ‘Single words at first, then more and more until whole sentences appeared. I think Silverdust taught them.’

  ‘You can’t possibly know how to unmake the Ashen Torment,’ said Tief, shaking his head. ‘Why promise to release them?’

  ‘Give me my hammer,’ said Steiner, hand outstretched to Kimi as he glowered at Tief.

  ‘There’s no not doing this, once it’s been done,’ said Kimi softly.

  ‘You just killed two soldiers and knocked the door off the hinges,’ replied Steiner. ‘I’d say we’re long past the point of no return.’ He hammered at the wall where the chain joined it, tugging and hammering until the chain rattled to the floor. He bound up his wrist in the metal links and when he turned back to the room, more cinderwraiths had slunk into the cell. They emerged from cracks in the stone or drifted through the door.

  ‘Do you know how to do it, Hammersmith?’ said Tief. ‘Do you know how to set the wraiths free? Tell the truth of it.’

  ‘Kimi, give me the amulet.’

  The Yamal princess shook her head. ‘This burden is mine, Steiner.’

  ‘But
it doesn’t have to be. If we can free the cinderwraiths—’

  ‘The Empire entrusted this to me,’ said Kimi, one hand pressed to the front of her chest. ‘If you free the wraiths my people will suffer.’

  ‘We have to start somewhere,’ said Steiner, ‘and right now I need all the help I can get. I need an army of lost souls who want revenge on the Empire that killed them. And once we do this, who’s to say what we’ll do next? There’s no reason we can’t free the Yamal too.’

  All eyes in the room turned to Kimi, dozens of glowing eyes, all waiting on what the princess would say next. Kimi shook her head.

  ‘They’ll order the execution of every Yamal that draws breath if I give this to you,’ said Kimi. ‘You don’t know what they’ve done already, you don’t know what they’re capable of.’

  ‘The Empire will exterminate every Spriggani and every Yamal they can find,’ said Steiner. ‘They’re just preoccupied with Shanisrond right now. Once the war is over nowhere will be safe.’

  ‘The boy speaks the truth of it.’ Tief nodded, tugging one ear.

  ‘He speaks your truth,’ replied Kimi. ‘This is what you believe, Tief. Who’s to say what the Empire will do once they’ve unified Vinterkveld?’

  The cinderwraiths shrank back, many bowing their heads. Tief looked through the door and released an irritable sigh.

  ‘How many Spriggani and Yamal have you seen wearing an Imperial uniform?’ said Steiner.

  ‘None,’ admitted Kimi.

  ‘And do you think that will change any time soon? You think the Empire is going to become more tolerant after it wins the war in Shanisrond?’

  ‘No.’ Kimi rubbed her eyes. ‘But not letting us become citizens of the Empire is different to exterminating us.’