‘Come inside,’ Saykaan said. ‘Ramek, Tumat: guard the building please.’
The two men, dressed in similar clothes to Saykaan except for the significantly larger knives hanging from their belts, stood in front of the angels, bowed, and then turned, facing outward.
‘This way,’ Saykaan said, and pushed open the heavy doors. ‘Our Mayor is strong and astute, a grand leader. She is in full health; our people wouldn’t tolerate her any other way. However, since the death of my father, she has had to assume a great deal more responsibility. The pressure is on her to protect Iilyani, but I would never apologise in advance for anything she might say.’
The group of passengers followed him into a long passage, through the first of its two doors. It led to a large room that must have taken up the majority of the building.
‘Lady Mayor, I have the visitors,’ he said, before leaving and closing the door quietly in his stead.
She sat in a seat of dark wood, ornately carved with tiny figures. A bo-staff was threaded through a set of rings in its side, tall as a man and tied at the top with a black ribbon. The Mayor’s bald head rose. They saw that she was not much older than Gabel, with dark mahogany eyes that seemed black with the sunlight behind her.
‘You may introduce yourselves,’ she said quietly, echoing the words of her son.
The old man was the first to step forward. ‘I am a magus,’ he said. ‘This is my employee, Joseph Gabel. We travel en route to the city of Shianti in the rainforests past the Plains.’
The Mayor nodded, signalling that he should continue.
‘This is Rowan Dayle, a member of Joseph’s township,’ the magus went on. ‘This is Caeles, who helps us on our journey, and this is Sarai Catling, who has joined us in search of her captured offspring.’
‘Quite a bunch,’ the Mayor said, standing and rubbing her hands over her arms, which were naked but for brass bangles similar to Saykaan’s, and the heavy brass gauntlet on her right hand, which creaked whenever she made a fist. ‘With stories worth permission to stay another night here, I’d wager. You said you are a magus. What is your name?’
‘I don’t carry a name.’
‘And why not?’
‘I don’t use it much,’ he replied. ‘I keep forgetting what it is.’
The Mayor laughed. ‘You didn’t look like the type to be branded with such a label. Something so trivial as a name must seem unimportant to you. My name is Firrok.’
Her face suddenly dropped into a severe grimace, and she rushed forward. The sharp thumb of her metal-sheathed hand sliced a line in the magus’ forehead. He did not move, letting a trickle of blood run down past his eye as he watched her.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Very good.’ She tugged a strip of fabric from one of her arm bracelets, and stroked it gently over the cut. ‘You are a warrior.’
‘As are you,’ Gabel said, already having taken a step in her direction. ‘We hear that you’ve sworn to stay and fight against the Luxers.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They’ll not win next time. I’d sooner perish.’
‘I approve of your intentions in that regard, and of your son Saykaan’s ambitions to restore the burnt dwellings to what they were. I’d gladly help while we stay here, with your permission.’
‘You’re astute,’ said the Mayor, smiling tiredly. ‘Already you’ve figured that everything in this town is only done with my blessing, even the voluntary work of guests. You may work with my son if you wish, but you don’t have to. To see a friendly face here is enough. You say you journey to Shianti. Why?’
‘Rowan, who travels with us, is sick.’
‘Yes, but she doesn’t seem it,’ she said.
There was a brief pause, and Rowan looked to both Gabel and the magus before realising she was being asked to speak.
‘I am still somewhat weak from an attack, Lady Mayor,’ she said.
‘An attack? Who attacked you?’
‘We do not know, Lady Mayor.’
‘I leased you permission to use my name, Rowan.’
‘Yes, Lady Firrok,’ she said quietly, looking at the floor.
Sensing Rowan was uneasy, the Mayor turned to the old man and asked, ‘When were you attacked?’
‘Over the great lake Lual, a few weeks ago,’ he replied.
‘Then she became ill during the journey?’
‘She also suffers from another unexplainable illness, my Lady.’
Here she stepped closer to the magus, and brought her naked bare thumb across his shallow wound, cleansing it. Then she rubbed her fingers together, and sucked the blood from them.
‘You are powerful,’ she whispered. ‘Please, help me.’
‘I am sorry,’ the old man replied, almost sadly. He seemed to recognise something in her, and his expression changed to one of sorrow. ‘I have other things that I must do.’
Rowan couldn’t even guess what was going on, but the magus appeared to understand exactly what Firrok had meant. Sarai only looked at the floor uneasily, but Gabel seemed to have an inkling. He had the same expression he wore when thinking of Bethany since her death at the hands of the theriope. Was Lady Firrok suggesting that the magus could be some kind of companion?
Firrok took a deep breath and turned. ‘Let’s move on to your relationship with this man here, in the hat, who so bravely interrupted me not too long ago. Do you teach him magic?’
‘No, he’s not an apprentice, but an employee. He’s in my service. He is a factotum.’
The Mayor’s brass gauntlet creaked as she flexed her hand. ‘Here,’ she said lowly, almost inaudibly. ‘In my town?’
‘My work is honourable,’ said Gabel, scowling.
‘You have a demeaning and unpleasant occupation. If you wish to stay alive in Iilyani you will tell my people you are his apprentice, if they ask. That is my order to you, as your host.’
‘Yes, Lady Firrok.’
‘You, with the eyes,’ she said, looking now at Sarai. ‘You have lost a child?’
‘My son’s being held by an enemy.’
‘A common enemy?’
‘Perhaps so.’
‘I would have happily send men with you to help, but they are both tired and short in number. And you say you intend to cross the Sinh-ha Plains, which is another problem for you. We have found that the Caballeros de la Muerte have made an alliance with the Luxers. I believe it’s an attempt to wipe us out, as one of the closest permanent settlements east of Shianti.’
‘How often is the town attacked?’ Caeles asked, speaking for the first time. No-one missed the fact that he hadn’t waited to be addressed, nor that he had omitted the Lady Mayor’s title. But Firrok seemed to see something impressive in Caeles, and only looked him up and down once before replying.
‘Almost weekly now. But we will fight.’
‘If not for my lost son, I would gladly stay and fight with you,’ Sarai said, and bowed.
‘I thank you. And now,’ said the Mayor, with clear effort, ‘I hear from Saykaan that you lodge with my other son, Turenn.’
‘That’s right,’ said the magus. ‘He offered us a place to stay when no other was available.’
‘Watch your girl in that place,’ warned the Mayor. ‘Turenn is ambitious to say the least. Perhaps voracious is a better word – as a man, and as a potential heir to this Mayorship. Has he mentioned this to you?’
‘He has been absent almost all of our stay with him, Lady Firrok,’ the magus replied.
She nodded, and sighed. ‘I’m having great difficulty in keeping my town together. I wish with all my heart that Saykaan would agree to be my successor, but he insists on rebuilding Iilyani rather than ruling it. It is honourable, I think, but it only leaves me with Turenn as my heir. That is … worrisome.’
~
‘Were you listening?’ Gabel asked Rowan, once they were outside. He walked closely beside her, and spoke in a whisper. ‘Turenn is no good.’
‘I have my own judgements where people are concerned,’ Rowa
n replied, and sped up. She felt brittle after her audience with Lady Firrok. It had felt to her more like an interrogation, despite the Mayor’s occasional smile, and it had left Rowan exhausted.
Gabel caught her wrist.
‘Don’t let him deceive you,’ he said. ‘He uses women.’
‘I have eyes and a mind.’
‘Then use them. Leave Turenn be.’
‘Don’t order me around, Joseph,’ she said. ‘You are the factotum, not me.’
~
For three additional nights they stayed at Turenn’s brothel, and every morning Gabel would go back to The Water Wader and ask if there was a room. None had freed up. Every night they were forced to sleep under the roof of the Mayor’s disreputable son.
The fourth morning came to Rowan with more heat than she had ever experienced. She had felt weak upon their arrival in Iilyani, but now she was stifled by the intense stuffiness coming over from the Plains. The ground around the clearing was white with heat. She shielded her eyes and gazed out from the edge of town, feeling the warmth sink into her skin.
Gabel always disappeared in the mornings. She had noticed it the second night, and the following two. Last night she’d woken and followed him to the inn. After that he vanished, moving quickly through the side streets, scattering shili, and disappeared. She thought she had seen a figure crossing the clearing, and this morning intended to see where it was that Gabel went to.
She saw the outline of a figure way across the clearing, barely visible amidst the burning iridescence of the ground as the sunlight was split by the shifting heat-glare. For a moment she saw a heat delusion in which rippling air over his shoulders became stretching wings, and they came with an impression of being watching, as though the wings had eyes … Rowan watched as the man moved back toward the town, the distressing delusion having faded.
‘Joseph,’ she called when she was sure. The figure turned and looked at her, now much closer.
‘Rowan. You shouldn’t be out in this sunlight. You could harm yourself.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘To the river.’
‘Why? To wash your hands again? Why so often?’
‘To keep them clean?’ he suggested sarcastically, and pulled his hat over his eyes, looking at the floor as he walked by.
‘That isn’t the reason. Tell me.’
‘If you tell me you’re not interested in Turenn.’
Rowan looked away. The sun felt like it was burning her now, and she glanced over to the nearest building, looking for some shade to shelter in. Her eyes hurt with the light.
The hunter had refused to speak with her at times, apparently furious, and sometimes she refused to talk in return. She had followed him today … why? He looked at her as if waiting for an answer, but before she could speak, he said:
‘I’m going back to find the others. I think we’re ready to leave. We’ve helped out enough here.’
He walked into town, leaving Rowan standing by herself in the shade of a high wall.
She heard the sound of raised voices. Rowan faced where she thought the noise was coming from – somewhere nearby – and saw Gabel stop in the street to look too. When he ran toward the source of the noise, she quickly followed.
‘Look at this!’ a bass voice was yelling. ‘Look at this rubble that was our town. I can’t put up with this anymore!’
‘Quiet, Ramek,’ the strong voice of Saykaan called out. ‘You’re making a scene.’
‘A scene? What sort of stage is this for a scene, and what sort of play? A play of war? Certainly disaster. This town’s cursed.’
Gabel and Rowan met at the intersection. The buildings there were the worst damaged, as the invading Luxer hordes had swept along these roads more than once. Nearly all buildings, for a radius of two or three streets, were levelled.
A group of dusty dark-skinned men stood in the half-cleared wreckage of a large building. One came forward, and Rowan recognised him as one of the two who had escorted them to the Mayor’s house the first morning they had stayed.
‘Look at this mound of rubble and bodies we stand on, Saykaan!’ Ramek yelled. ‘See this heap of brick and bone our feet rest upon. Maybe we should repave our streets with it: there’s enough to go twice around the town.’
‘Enough!’ Saykaan roared. ‘What shall we do? Weep about the past? We’ve done enough of that! Everyone else is now concerned with rebuilding our homes so that we might live in peace for a while. You cause a fracas in the streets!’
‘Live in peace?’ Ramek laughed, looking around at the small troupe behind him. ‘Live in peace? Until the next time those white-clad devils come. We’re about due, aren’t we Saykaan? They come like clockwork now, once a week, if we’re lucky … They come and burn more each time, not minding who they slaughter as they go about it.’
‘There’s nothing we can do, Ramek, except defend and rebuild. We killed two and captured one last time they attacked. Maybe next time we’ll kill five or six, and more the next … They can’t spawn that quickly.’
‘Saykaan, you are naïve,’ said one of the men standing beside Ramek. ‘As Ramek said: this town is an ashtray. We should empty it out and move it to somewhere safer!’
‘What would you suggest, Cimal?’ one of Saykaan’s defenders called. ‘Shift the town further down the road? All they would have to do is ride their horses a little further before they get their bonfire. It would solve nothing.’
‘Then move even further! Why stop in the forest? Why not go deep into the Plains, where they daren’t follow?’
‘You’re a fool, Cimal. Think of the sanguisuga.’
‘Calm down, Tumat,’ Saykaan ordered. ‘Ramek, this argument is over.’
‘It is not!’ Cimal yelled. ‘Why not move into the desert? Find caves in which to dwell? Soon the Luxers might encircle us in this neat open grave of a clearing, and what then? Nowhere to hide. And what if the river continues to dry up? What about the fires they start? Leave them to burn? Or use your mother’s pride and false confidence to smother them?’
‘Enough!’ yelled Saykaan. ‘You will continue rebuilding. Or do I have to lock you up, with that Luxer demon?’
There were murmurs from Ramek’s crowd. They dispersed, lifting rubble and carrying it to a dumping site just outside the town.
‘This isn’t finished, Saykaan,’ Ramek said quietly, standing before the Mayor’s son. ‘Not yet.’
‘Get back to work,’ Saykaan replied calmly.
Gabel and Rowan watched in silence as the dispute ended, then glanced at each other.
‘Is it true the river dries up?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Gabel replied. ‘There’s nothing but pebbles and sand now, beneath the tiniest trickle of water. If there are more fires…’
‘This whole place will be cinders,’ she finished.
Saykaan saw them and walked over. ‘This is the rivalry that has divided our whole town. My mother insists we should continue to defend ourselves against the Luxers. That was my father’s wish as well.’
‘Do you agree with them?’
‘I’m starting the think that perhaps Ramek is right,’ Saykaan breathed. ‘We should evacuate Iilyani.’
~
Two more days passed, and over each meal Gabel watched as Turenn seduced Rowan. At the end of each meal the pimp gave no mind to the attention-seeking girls around him, and sat looking at her from across the table, waiting for her to stand, perhaps, and sit on his lap as the other had done.
Rowan never moved from her seat, but often smiled when she thought no-one was looking, and could occasionally be found walking down the corridors, seeking the man who had caught her notice so thoroughly.
*
Twenty-One
—AND FLAMES
On the sixth night shouting drifted up from the outskirts of town. The first wave was a collection of war-cries and savage yells of joy. The second wave was, indisputably, collective screams of terror.
The Luxers had co
me to take Iilyani.
Caeles awoke with the first yells. Eyelids flickering open, he lay still in his bed and listened in the darkness. He heard movement outside of the room. Immediately he was out of bed, bare-footed and bare-chested, and he grasped the slick black scabbard of his sword, which lay propped up against the wall. He rushed through the door and found the corridor full of young women in nightgowns.
‘What’s happening?’ he asked.
‘The Luxers!’ one girl stammered.
Another grabbed Caeles by the arm. ‘Turenn! Turenn has gone to fight them!’
‘Shit,’ Caeles breathed, already halfway down the dark corridor. The windows cast an orange glow across him as he ran; flames had risen once again to claim the town.
Neither Gabel or the magus seemed anywhere nearby, and Rowan was nowhere to be seen. Making a decision, Caeles left the building alone brandishing the wakizashi.
People were running through the streets, and shili screeched in terror, scattering between the pounding feet of the frightened citizens and climbing up walls. The horizon burned a deep red. Oil-thick smoke blotted out the stars. Cursing, Caeles pushed through the crowds. He battled his way past mothers clutching their children and confused feral animals
He heard hoofs. Backlit by the fire that had spread across the east side of town, a hooded figure on horseback came from around the corner of a demolished building. The faceless rider pulled on his steed’s reins, turning the blinkered beast to face down the street, then commanded it to run. Caeles stood in the centre of the road, chest heaving, brow creased deep with anger. The sword sang as he released it from its scabbard, and seemed to burst into flames as the fire saw its reflection in the silver surface.
The horseman galloped down the street, seeing the swordsman too late to stop or turn. The wakizashi cut through the hot air and searing blood splashed on Caeles’ arm and face; the horse reared instantly, whinnying and turning on its hind legs. The rider slipped from the saddle and his masked face crunched into the hard road. His ankle broke loudly as the stirrup refused to let go. The horse galloped away, and the gushing Luxman spun twice in its wake before the stirrup released him and left the body to be trampled by the escaping crowd.
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