Empress of the Fall

by David Hair

  Amidst a raucous cheer from his warriors, the brothers were led to the massive pavilion of the clan chief. Paruq, forbidden alcohol, went to confer with his missionaries. Kyrik felt like a twig in a river as they were swept inside and seated on firm leather cushions. The tent was of cured leather too, with a central fire-pit. Women and children were gathered around the fire, many of the women openly breastfeeding or changing swaddling: the noise never ceased, though everyone turned to stare curiously at the brothers. Thraan and his sons sat around them, studying them and speaking to each other in rapid Sydian. One of the women brought liquor – a clear fluid served in a thimble-sized cup carved from horn. It didn’t really taste of anything, but it hit Kyrik like a punch to the nose and throat.

  Thraan laughed and poured more. ‘Is good? Ysh? Nii?’

  They say ‘ysh’ and ‘nii’ . . . Kyrik let his eyes drift, watching the faces. Sydians were uniformly black-haired, with an olive-bronze hue to their skin that wouldn’t have been out of place in Dhassa. But their eyes were narrower, their cheekbones wider, and linguistically, they were very much of Yuros.

  ‘We are Vlpa clan – Ve-yil-pah – is how you say,’ Thraan told him. ‘Vlpa, of Uffrykai tribe.’ He pointed to a blazon on his tent walls. ‘Fox-head, in Rondian.’

  ‘Foxes are good luck in Mollachia, especially white ones,’ Kyrik said in Mollach. He was having very little difficulty understanding, or being understood. Handy . . . but strange.

  ‘Nii, white fox is ghost, not good! Means bad snow, like this year.’ Thraan jerked a thumb towards a line of white pelts hanging from a wire. ‘Sunsurge, ysh?’ He peered at Kyrik and asked, ‘Why is Mollach friend to Amteh, eh?’

  ‘He saved me, after I was captured on Crusade, and spared me. We became friends.’

  ‘And you are going back to Mollach, Prince?’

  ‘Ysh. We’ve been away a very long time.’

  ‘Your father – he is Nacelnik, ysh?’

  ‘Kirol, we say, our word for king. He is Kirol Elgren Sarkany.’

  ‘He is descended of Zillitiya, ysh?’

  Valdyr masked a startled snort by downing his drink, while Kyrik looked at the chief in surprise. ‘Do you mean Zlateyr? I am honoured that you know the name of a Mollach hero!’

  ‘A nacelnik knows the names of his forefathers! Zillitiya was an Uffrykai under-chief, many Moontides ago. He took many warriors – Vlpa included – into the mountains. He found Mollach.’ Thraan raised his cup. ‘Perhaps we are kin, ysh?’

  ‘Perhaps we are!’ Kyrik said, glancing at Valdyr warningly; his brother was looking far from happy with the notion. But what could have been an awkward moment was avoided when a dusky Sydian woman clad in the traditional leathers of the plains joined them.

  Thraan made a respectful gesture, and introduced her. ‘Kyrik and Valdyr Sarkany, this is Hajya, head of the Vlpa Sfera: our magi.’

  Kyrik’s throat went a little dry as he met the woman’s world-wise eyes.

  ‘Welcome to the Vlpa lands, Sarkany Lords.’ She accepted a bone thimble, and he realised she alone among the women was drinking. Her voice had a husky sensuality, emphasised by her voluptuous grace of movement. ‘You are mage, ysh?’ she asked.

  Kyrik nodded; he guessed she’d been observing his aura before approaching. ‘Quarter-blood.’

  ‘Strong,’ Hajya approved, ‘like me.’

  I suppose to these people, quarter-blood is strong, Kyrik thought, meeting Hajya’s brown eyes. Sydian women had a special kind of notoriety in Yuros: for many generations they’d been hurling themselves at Rondian magi, seeking to get with child, then disappearing back to their clan. The strength of the Sfera was often the strength of the clan.

  ‘You and I must talk,’ Hajya purred, all confident sensuality. She was perhaps his senior, handsome rather than pretty; her face had a leathery, lived-in quality, but with sparkling eyes and plump lips. ‘Is seldom a fellow mage visits outside of the Moontide years.’ She turned her gaze to Valdyr. ‘Two is a great boon.’

  Valdyr visibly cringed under her appraising stare; he threw back another shot of the liquor.

  Kyrik suddenly felt like a slave on the block in the souks of Peroz; or a stud-beast at the cattle market. ‘We can’t stay long. We’re journeying home to Mollachia, after many years away.’

  ‘Since the last Crusade,’ Thraan put in, and Kyrik let the misapprehension stand.

  Hajya’s eyes lingered on Kyrik with mercantile assessment. In her world, a passing mage was always an opportunity. ‘Would you like a fertile young woman to enjoy during your stay?’ she offered, as if proffering a great treat.

  Valdyr’s face went stiff, and Kyrik put a hand on his arm. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he replied, politely but firmly. He’d had his fill of such encounters; Valdyr’s revulsion ran even deeper.

  Hajya sighed regretfully, but raised her cup. ‘May your lives be long and your children plentiful.’

  They drank to that, and many other things as the evening wore on. A troupe of warriors brought in a spit-roasted bullock and platters of root vegetables cooked in spicy peppered gravy. There were songs, though – much to Kyrik’s relief – none of the sexual displays travellers passing through Sydian always spoke of. Perhaps Paruq was right; they’d been overstated by those who wrote travel memoirs. But the liquor never stopped flowing. Then the drums started.

  As the first of the drummers slapped the big hide-wrapped cylinders cradled on their knees, Hajya and a dozen other women rose to their feet with a sudden flex of their leg muscles, like deer springing into motion. All were Sfera, Kyrik realised from the periapts revealed as they shed the colourful bekira-robes to reveal thin leather shifts that barely covered chest and hips.

  Valdyr threw him an alarmed look, and again he had to pat his younger brother’s arm and shake his head, trusting in Paruq that this would be nothing that offended decency.

  Bam-taka, bam-taka-taka, the drums went, and, ‘Huy-huy,’ the men chanted as the women caught the rhythm in their hips, wriggling sinuously to the centre of the pavilion. Those watching clapped hands in time as they formed a circle, facing outwards, chests thrown forward, heads thrown back, black hair loose and flowing, bellies rippling and hips thrusting, then reversing the movement and throwing their heads forward so they were hunched beings with no faces, just curtains of black hair. Feet stamped and arms wove complex patterns, pulling aside the strands of hair to give glimpses of savagely grinning faces and rounded, fierce eyes. All the time the drums hammered away.

  Kyrik found himself watching breathlessly, his eyes drawn first to the gyrating, thrusting hips, the flex of the thighs and the breasts straining at the leather shifts, and then the faces as they were revealed, then concealed again. The women spun and flowed about each other so that each in turn danced before the whole of the tent. Around him the men shouted and laughed, Thraan hurling comments with the rest of them, then the dance paused, each woman tossed her head and thrust out a hand into the crowd of watching men.

  Hajya’s hand was beckoning him, her face imperious, demanding.

  She doesn’t take no for an answer, Kyrik thought, but with Valdyr beside him, this wasn’t something he could do, even had he not been overwhelmed by the alien nature of it all. He shook his head firmly.

  Hajya’s eyes flashed in contempt, then she chose another man and pulled him to her. Hands were grasped all around the circle of couples, each pair a rhythmic confrontation: arms touching, hips brushing, cheeks stroking cheeks, chests pressed then spinning away; the facial expressions challenging, demanding, in increasingly intimate movements.

  Kyrik felt Valdyr rise abruptly and push his way through the crowd, but he was transfixed, watching Hajya with a big, graceful warrior with forked beard and plaited hair, who moved with her with practised grace. He could see they had done this, and much more, all their lives.

  Then the drums reached a crescendo and as they thudded into silence, the dancers froze. He found his mouth dry, his hair standing on end, as he s
tared over Hajya’s partner’s shoulder and into her eyes. She raised her chin, as if some kind of superiority had been established, then kissed the cheeks of her partner and gave up the floor.

  The women were loudly applauded as they sat again and Thraan slapped Kyrik’s shoulder. ‘None of the Sfera may wed,’ he shouted in Kyrik’s ear. ‘Their bodies must always be open, to strengthen the clan. Hajya is strong: she has borne seven mage-children.’ Then he noticed Valdyr’s absence. ‘Your brother, he don’t like dance?’

  Kyrik read disapproval in the question. ‘The drink – it’s strong. We’ve had none for years.’

  ‘Aah!’ Thraan laughed, slapping his shoulder again, ‘it’s strong, ysh – here, have more!’

  When Kyrik was finally able to leave, several dances and innumerable drinks later, two of Thraan’s sons had to help him.

  Zillitiya . . . Zlateyr . . . I must ask Paruq, was Kyrik’s final thought as he closed his eyes on the spinning world.

  *

  Sometime before dawn, Valdyr moaned and rolled over. He was sweating under a pile of blankets and his guts felt rotten from the rich meat and unaccustomed liquor. Moonlight still bathed the plains and the camp was silent, or as silent as such a large number of close-pressed humans could be. Outside his blankets the air was gelid and his breath frosted in clouds.

  His gut rumbled again, and now his bladder was protesting too, so he rolled free, found the copper bowl in the corner, knelt and peed. His urine steamed hotly, the stench roiled his stomach further and he vomited into the bowl.

  ‘That bad, eh?’ Kyrik chuckled from the gloom. ‘There’s a godor outside the flap.’

  Waste hole’s a good description for Sydia, Valdyr thought as he found the foetid hole, uncovered it and emptied the bowl, then he crawled back to his blankets, chilled by his few seconds outside. He left the flap open to let the moonlight in, so he could see Kyrik.

  ‘When do we leave?’ he asked.

  ‘As soon as we can,’ Kyrik replied. ‘But it’s not so bad, really.’

  ‘Not as bad as a slave-gang,’ Valdyr conceded, massaging his temples, which had begun to throb. ‘Sweet Kore, I’ve not drunk liquor in . . . I think during a Noorie festival two years ago, one of the overseers slipped me a flask of fenni for my work-gang, enough for one swallow each. Before that . . . Hel, I don’t know.’

  ‘I remember the Midrea IV rankers giving you beer in the evenings – I was so angry.’

  ‘It didn’t hurt me.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Kyrik rubbed his eyes. ‘Mother used to scold Father if he gave me wine at table, remember? “The boy’s too young to become another drunkard!” she’d shout.’

  Mother . . . Valdyr pictured a blonde woman with a sad, bitter voice. Dania D’Augene, last child of a bastard line of one of the oldest mage families of Midrea, now debt-crippled and landless. When rumour reached Mollachia that certain Houses were open to approaches from non-magi of wealth, Elgren Sarkany had gone into Augenheim with a purse of gems for her uncle, and brought her back to bleak, ice-bound Hegikaro. Dania had been fourteen and virginal. She’d had her gnosis Chained – allegedly with her consent – so that she wouldn’t be a danger to her husband, and had eventually given the king two heirs, seven years apart. She’d died five winters later. Valdyr couldn’t remember a day she didn’t cry. She was small and skinny, capable of bird-like vibrancy and sudden fits of temper. She came alive in summer, but barely left her rooms in winter.

  Mother, Mother, he thought sadly. Father must have despised you – he spent all that money to bring the gnosis into the family, but all he got were two missing sons.

  ‘Hey, remember how we used to learn those Midrean harvest songs, to cheer her up?’ Kyrik recalled. ‘And all those lowland dances she tried to make us learn?’

  ‘I remember – I remember I had to dance with skinny Sezkia Zhagy!’

  ‘Hel, I’d forgotten her! Egy csinosa barana!’

  ‘A “cute lamb”? Did you just call her a cute lamb?’

  ‘It’s what we called pretty girls, back then,’ Kyrik laughed, then he said, ‘Brother, the dancing last night? It was nothing – Paruq was right, those old travellers’ stories about this place were exaggerated. And I’m not having that Sfera bitch telling us who to sleep with.’

  Valdyr closed his eyes in relief. The thought of copulating for the breeding wants of yet another group of dark-skinned savages revolted him, even five years after escaping the breeding-house. I don’t think I’ll ever want a woman again. That’s the scar you left, Asiv . . .

  Collistein, Kedron Valley, Yuros

  Martrois 935

  Kyrik nudged his heels into the flanks of his mare and she jolted into motion once more, Valdyr following. There was no easy road into Mollachia, but the lowland route meant travelling the length of the Kedron Valley to Augenheim, then east along the banks of the Reztu, another four hundred miles. Instead, they’d headed for the Rondian fortress at Collistein; this was their second day of steadily slogging through the foothills of the Matra Ranges. Although the gorge trail into Mollachia would be blocked by snow now, there were windskiffs in Collistein. They were expensive, but they had funds.

  They’d left the Vlpa clan after three nights, and it was a relief to go, in truth. For all he’d got along with Thraan, and the unsettling Hajya had kept her distance once she realised that he was sincere about not lying with a clanswoman, Valdyr’s unease in the Sydian camp was almost palpable and Kyrik realised he had to get him out.

  A low horn-blast from ahead wrenched Kyrik back to the present: the low grey clouds momentarily parted and he saw stone ramparts amidst the jagged stone ahead.

  ‘Look! We’re almost in Collistein!’ He picked up the pace as rain began to sting his cheeks, and was grateful to reach the gates before the downpour really began. Seven bells tolled inside, marking the time; it might be the seventh hour since dawn but it was as dark as evening, and clearly not going to get any lighter.

  ‘Halt!’ the legionary standing sentry called. Collistein was primarily a legion camp, protecting mining operations. ‘Names?’ He eyed them suspiciously.

  The brothers had debated giving false names, but Mollachia was part of the empire, and the Sarkany name might even open doors here. ‘I’m Kyrik Sarkany of Mollachia, and this is my brother Valdyr, returned from Crusade.’

  ‘Sarkany?’ The sentry muttered something to his fellow, who hurried off. ‘Wait here.’

  There was nothing to be gained from doing otherwise, so Kyrik settled for dismounting, to give his aching muscles some respite. Valdyr followed suit, looking around warily. The sentry returned in a few minutes with a red-cloaked battle-mage, a balding man with a no-nonsense manner. He surveyed them, then came forward, extending a hand. ‘Kyrik Sarkany, the son of King Elgren? I’m Secundus Url Rudman, of Midrea VII.’

  ‘I’m Kyrik,’ Kyrik confirmed. ‘This is my brother Valdyr.’

  ‘My men are confused,’ Rudman said. ‘We understood the Sarkany brothers had died in the Second Crusade? I take it you have proofs of your identity?’

  ‘Of course,’ Kyrik replied. He wiped the rain off his face and added, ‘Inside perhaps?’

  ‘Of course, come in,’ Rudman replied, indicating the doors, while nodding to himself, possibly in response to an unseen communication from another mage. Suddenly the open gates began to look a little like a trap.

  You’re being paranoid, Kyrik told himself, and anyway, we have no choice.

  He nudged his weary mare through the gatehouse into an empty courtyard beyond. He glimpsed open shutters and people watching, but most of his attention focused on the line of legionaries, a full cohort of twenty, standing in formation in the middle of the open space. They had javelins at the ready and their square shields deployed protectively: not a welcoming sight. He looked at Valdyr warningly and muttered, ‘Don’t do anything sudden.’

  ‘I’ll see those proofs now,’ Rudman said.

  Kyrik dismounted and handed over a thick envelope wh
ich contained the identification tokens he’d carried all through the Second Crusade, recovered by Paruq from the breeding-house. Rudman was studying them when a woman’s crisp voice said, ‘I’ll see those.’

  She had a stubborn-looking freckled face, short-cropped ginger hair and hazel eyes, and she strode into the courtyard like a man. Her green tunic had a badge of a stag in a ring of laurels. Rudman handed her the papers deferentially. ‘Please, dismount,’ she said to Valdyr. There was no direct threat in her voice, but her left hand was on her sword-hilt.

  Valdyr complied reluctantly, then she turned to Kyrik. ‘You’re the elder brother, yes? We understood you both to be dead. It’s been what, seventeen years?’

  He smiled; perhaps charm would soften her attitude. ‘It’s been a while. You’d have been – what, four or five when we left on Crusade?’

  ‘A little older,’ she grunted. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘We were captured and held by the Keshi until recently, when our release was secured.’

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘A prisoner of the Keshi,’ she said appraisingly, clearly knowing what that implied. ‘Were you ransomed?’

  ‘No, released, through the agency of the Ordo Costruo.’ It made a better tale than the truth. ‘And you are—?’

  She hesitated, then answered, ‘Sacrista Delestre. My father is Lord Delestre of Augenheim. My brother Robear and I are his acknowledged bastards.’ She gave his papers a cursory glance, then handed them back to Rudman. ‘Documents are just paper – I must satisfy myself that you are who you claim myself.’ She raised her right hand, kindling a faint gnosis-light at her fingertips. ‘I am a theurgist, primarily a mesmerist: mental scanning is my forte. If you please?’

  It was the moment of trust. Either he allowed her to enter his surface thoughts – knowing that if he did, he would have little recourse if she attacked him once inside his mental defences – or they took their chances trying to fight their way out.

  We should have taken the long road. Valdyr was clearly no happier than he, but the reality was that they would just as likely faced a similar scene as they passed by Augenheim. What choice do we have?