Nightfall

by Den Patrick

  Silverdust raised his arm to throw the arcane spear as two figures appeared from the gloom, a women and a man, joined in a fall that would surely kill them. The woman reached out with a gesture, almost caressing the air beneath her, slowing their descent. Both man and woman touched down in the rubble as if they had merely stepped from a carriage. Silverdust drew closer.

  ‘Let’s never do that again,’ said the scarred man clutching a sledgehammer.

  Steiner? Felgenhauer? Is that you?

  The scarred man stared back with open-mouthed disbelief. ‘Silverdust?’ Steiner took a step closer, squinting into the darkness. The cinderwraith dispelled the flaming spear with a flick of his fingers. ‘How? I saw you swallowed by Bittervinge. And you’d been wounded by an arcane blade.’

  It is I, Steiner. I assure you. It was I who released the dragons after you left Vladibogdan, and it was I who was sent to hunt Felgenhauer by the Emperor. We fought side by side in the Great Library on Arkiv.

  Steiner leapt forward and caught Silverdust in a fierce hug while Felgenhauer cocked her head to one side, a smile quirking the corner of her mouth.

  Matriarch-Commissar. Silverdust inclined his head in respect.

  ‘The first time we met, you were an eccentric Exarch living on Vladibogdan,’ said Felgenhauer. ‘Last time we met, I discovered you were a cinderwraith. Now you’re back from the dead.’

  Allow me to explain. Silverdust recounted his unusual journey, coming from Arkiv in the urn, and being remade with Stonvind’s help.

  ‘And they’re all still alive?’ asked Steiner breathlessly. ‘Kimi and Taiga and Tief? We saw them recently …’

  All alive – and riding dragons no less.

  ‘Kimi, Tief, and Taiga. All three dragon riders.’ Felgenhauer shook her head incredulously. ‘Frøya save me. What strange times we live in. I’d be greatly afeared if I was Volkan Karlov.’

  ‘Does Kimi know I’m in the city?’ asked Steiner, and Silverdust could sense his excitement at being reunited with her.

  Yes. She knows you hunt the Emperor. She has wanted to find you but it was impossible. Silverdust decided it was best not to mention Kimi’s attachment to the Ashen Blade, lest Steiner be distracted from the task ahead.

  ‘Why are you here?’ asked Steiner. ‘I mean here specifically? Do you know the way into the palace?’

  In truth I do not. The catacombs are much changed since I was here last. It appears there has been a great collapse. I am here to converse with the dead. Specifically your great-grandfather, Steiner.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said Felgenhauer. ‘None of the academies have ever been able to develop such powers. We have always been concerned with the elements, never the souls of the dead.’

  True enough, though this is not an arcane power I draw on mindfully; rather it manifests continuously, even when I would prefer it did not.

  ‘You can speak to dead?’ asked Steiner.

  I can see the dead. I saw scores of city folk, haunting the ruins of their homes, as I ventured here.

  ‘How long have you been able to do this?’ asked Felgenhauer.

  I felt a change in myself following the destruction of the Ashen Torment. I assumed it was connected to that. A few weeks after you departed I found myself in the woods north of Cinderfell. That was when the power first manifested. I saw a score of dead Okhrana, shocked and lost. They were deeply confused, defeated by the hand of one supremely powerful young woman.

  ‘Kjellrunn,’ breathed Steiner.

  Her powers are considerable.

  ‘They’re calling her the Stormtide Prophet,’ said Steiner.

  And it is right that they do. She will herald a new age of the goddesses, but only if she survives.

  The temperature of the ruined catacombs, which was already chilly, became colder still. Steiner and Felgenhauer’s breath steamed on the air. The arcane halo of silver light that danced around Silverdust’s feet flickered, and blinked out for a moment.

  He comes. Alexandr Vartiainen comes to us.

  ‘What can you see?’ whispered Steiner.

  The sarcophagus is lit from within. A pale blue light, such as I have seen before. The stone container had fallen a great distance and was cracked in many places. Somehow the lid was mostly intact, though the inscription had been chipped so badly it was illegible.

  ‘Why is my great-grandfather’s sarcophagus all the way down here?’ asked Steiner.

  It is strangely convenient that this part of the catacombs has suffered in such a way, is it not? The Emperor has ever been fond of erasing those parts of the past he finds distasteful. The inscription was not damaged in the fall. I imagine a chisel was taken to his name, but I have found him nonetheless.

  A ghostly head appeared through the sarcophagus lid, drifting higher with each moment. Silverdust could sense Steiner’s disquiet and he was not alone. Felgenhauer was not such an open book, even with Silverdust’s considerable powers, and yet her face betrayed her curiosity and her sadness.

  ‘Is he here?’ whispered Steiner, unable to see as Silverdust did.

  More so with every moment. The spirit took a moment to gather himself, then became less transparent, an illustration of a person, grey chalk on the very fabric of the darkness.

  ‘I can see him,’ whispered Steiner.

  That is not possible, replied Silverdust. The apparition now hovered above the sarcophagus, looking down at cinderwraith and mortal alike.

  ‘I can see him too,’ said Felgenhauer, her face pale in the spectral light. The spirit of Alexandr Vartiainen appeared as square-jawed as he had in life. Even his ghost wore a heavy breastplate, and he clutched a shadowy sword.

  ‘I have seen much in this world and the next, but I never thought to see my granddaughter or my great-grandson. Who am I to thank for this blessing?’

  It is I. Silverdust drifted forward. Serebryanyy Pyli. The cinderwraith performed a small bow.

  ‘The Emperor’s teacher. The years have not been kind to you. I do not recognize what you are. How long have I been … away?’

  ‘Seventy-five years, Grandfather,’ said Felgenhauer with deep reverence.

  ‘I am sorry I never had the chance to meet you, Granddaughter.’

  ‘We’re meeting now,’ replied Felgenhauer, ‘that’s all that matters.’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said Steiner, a memory of Arkiv jarring something inside him. ‘Bittervinge said you had the same name as me.’

  ‘I do. Alexandr is my middle name. My father was Steiner as well, and his father before him. I used my middle name to avoid confusion. Be sure to give your own son a different name – perhaps Alexandr?’

  Steiner smiled. ‘It’s a good name.’ He paused for moment. ‘Will you tell us how to defeat the Emperor?’ he said.

  ‘You seek to avenge me?’

  ‘So the Emperor did kill you?’ said Felgenhauer quietly. The ghost of Alexandr nodded.

  ‘I was desperate to kill Bittervinge and remove the taint of dragons from Vinterkveld once and for all, but the Emperor wanted to capture it, harness it, learn from it. We disagreed. Violently.’

  ‘How did he defeat you while you were wielding this?’ asked Steiner, hefting the black iron sledgehammer.

  ‘He lied to me and held me close, then stabbed me in the back with the Ashen Blade. I wilted and died in moments.’

  ‘The Ashen Blade,’ repeated Steiner. ‘Bittervinge told me it’s the only way to kill the Emperor.’

  The ghost of Alexandr considered this a moment.

  By now ‘I imagine he has mastered all four of the arcane schools: Plamya, Voda, Vozdukha, and Zemlya. He will be largely impervious to everything and anything you can bring to bear on him.’

  ‘Surely he knows this?’ said Felgenhauer.

  ‘He does. He is counting on it.’

  ‘How do we get the blade?’ asked Steiner.

  ‘There is another blade, an identical one—’

  ‘I know this,’ said Steiner impatiently, ‘but I can’
t very well go hunting through Izhoria for Veles to claim it for myself.’

  The ghost of Alexandr turned to Silverdust.

  ‘You have not told him. Why not?’

  ‘Not told him what?’ said Felgenhauer.

  Silverdust would have sighed had he still had lungs. Kimi has the other Ashen Blade. She would not release it to me. She seeks to kill the Emperor with it in order to avenge her father’s death.

  They stood in the ruins of the catacombs a moment, no one knowing what to say following Alexandr’s revelation. Steiner’s feeling of powerlessness was almost tangible.

  ‘You must face the Emperor, you three, and wrestle the blade from him by strength or cunning. The way ahead will not be easy. Boyar Sokolov has sold you out, but you can still make it through to the palace if you work together.’

  ‘The bastard,’ muttered Steiner. ‘How do you know of the Boyar?’

  ‘One has arrived recently from the other side. He brought news of the living.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Steiner. A moment later a second ghostly form appeared beside Alexandr, drawing a strangled sob from Steiner.

  ‘Marek,’ whispered Felgenhauer with tears in her eyes. She put an arm around Steiner’s shoulders.

  ‘No need to rescue me now, my son. I am taking my rest.’

  ‘No,’ croaked Steiner. He stumbled forward to grip the apparition of his father, but his fingers met nothing but the chill of the grave. Marke spoke.

  ‘Concentrate on ending Volkan Karlov. He seeks to end our line – you and Kjellrunn. Do this for me. Don’t let everything we have endured be in vain.’

  Steiner nodded wordlessly, sinking to his knees, brought low by his grief. Felgenhauer stood behind him, a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I must go now, but I send all my love and all my strength to you both.’ He smiled fondly at Felgenhauer and Steiner.

  The apparitions smiled once more and the ghosts of Marek and Steiner Alexandr Vartiainen faded from sight, leaving them in the dank depths of the catacombs.

  ‘We will see you again.’

  Steiner covered his face with hands and let the frustration and grief course through him. ‘If I’d just moved faster I might have—’

  No one ever did well out of the game you are playing, Steiner. Silverdust drew near and laid a hand on Steiner’s shoulder. Now is not the time to punish yourself. Volkan Karlov has done that for you.

  They stood in silence for a time before Felgenhauer turned to Silverdust. ‘Why did Alexandr call you the Emperor’s teacher?’

  Because it was I, in a moment of folly and hubris, who thought I knew better than my Spriggani elders. It was I who first taught Volkan Karlov the arcane. Vinterkveld has been paying the price for my mistake ever since.

  ‘Without you there’d be no Holy Synod,’ said Felgenhauer, and Silverdust felt the note of accusation in her tone keenly.

  If the dragons had been exterminated as the Emperor insisted, there would be no witchsign.

  ‘Let’s not argue,’ said Steiner, rising to his feet and dashing the tears from his face with the back of his hand. ‘Great-grandfather said we had to work together, remember? We may not be able to count on Kimi to do right by us, but we can do right by each other.’

  We should press on. Time is not on our side.

  The cinderwraith, the blacksmith’s son, and the former Vigilant headed deeper into the darkness, praying for a way back to the light.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Kimi

  People often ask me which of the enchanted weapons or artefacts was the most powerful. Surely it was Steiner’s sledgehammer? Perhaps Streig’s two-handed sword? And let us not forget Kimi carrying an Ashen Blade and the Ashen Torment, or Taiga’s dagger and sickle? What was most powerful during the uprising, the most influential, people ask, and I reply, ‘None of them.’ Willingness was what saw people through, for without willingness the first step is unthinkable.

  – From the memoir of Drakina Tveit, Lead Librarian of Midtenjord Province

  Kimi and Taiga had prayed for a miracle from Frøya and tried to sleep as best they could but Tief remained unconscious. His bruises looked worse with each passing hour and the shingle beach provided a poor bed to sleep on. A cold wind swept in from the Ashen Gulf and the crash of restless waves was an unfitting lullaby. Kimi rolled on to her back to gaze up at the first stars of evening, but the skies only promised rain.

  ‘Perhaps divine intervention isn’t possible,’ she said. ‘Or perhaps we’ve fallen out of favour.’

  ‘I suppose we had the shrine in Izhoria,’ said Taiga sadly. The high priestess had also been trying to sleep, but now she propped her head up on one hand. ‘And there were sacrifices.’ She reached over and stroked her brother’s forehead. ‘We could try again, I suppose?’

  It was then that the riot on the beach broke out as the last of the small boats headed back to the ship. Kimi and Taiga stood their ground, protecting Tief with weapons in hand, but none of the refugees came close to their simple camp. Neither princess or high priestess had felt like praying after the riot and night fell on the chilly cove. Later, after they’d eaten, the wind chased away the clouds, revealing an expanse of dark blue sky laden with silver stars. The crescent moon put Kimi in mind of Taiga’s silver sickle, but she couldn’t bring herself to hope it was a good omen.

  ‘Maybe he’ll be better tomorrow,’ said Taiga, stirring up the embers of the campfire, before settling down to sleep.

  The pack animals had not kept the dragons sated for long. Namarii, Stonvind, and Flodvind had set out at dawn in order to dine on fish and Kimi watched them return with a sense of awe. Stonvind’s injuries still troubled him. The grey dragon landed well enough, but he walked slowly and slept often. Namarii and Flodvind had weathered their share of punishment from the father of dragons too, but neither had suffered the indignity of being slammed into the ground as their kin had.

  These people are going nowhere. Namarii eyed the refugees who had returned to the top of the cliff to watch the dragons as they came in to land. Would it really be so terrible—

  ‘No people!’ said Taiga. ‘Black, white, or brown. Believers or non-believers. It makes no difference to me. No one is being eaten!’

  ‘Come on,’ said Kimi. It was the first time she had addressed the dark brown dragon since they had fled Khlystburg. ‘You want to eat? I’ll find you a few scraps.’

  Where are we going? Namarii released a low growl but Kimi wondered if the creature was hiding behind anger to mask his anxiety.

  ‘To the city.’ She took a repurposed saddle and slung it around Namarii’s neck, making sure the buckles held fast. ‘If you’re not too afraid?’

  Dragons do not feel fear. Namarii flapped his wings in irritation but Kimi was unperturbed.

  ‘I suppose that was just a healthy sense of self-preservation you were displaying when we fought Bittervinge.’ She let out a low mocking laugh as she climbed into the saddle.

  I do not enjoy the tone you are taking with me, Your Highness.

  ‘And Stonvind didn’t enjoy being left twisting in the wind by his friend,’ replied Kimi as the dragon scaled the cliff.

  He did not twist in the wind. He fell from the sky.

  ‘It was a figure of speech, you idiot reptile,’ replied Kimi as she rolled her eyes.

  Namarii growled again, then launched himself into the air so violently Kimi had to cling on to the saddle’s cantle. The refugees from the city ran in all directions, certain their time had come, but it seemed Taiga’s proscription held fast, even with a creature as arrogant as Namarii.

  Namarii brought four corpses back to Stonvind at the cove and deposited them before his kin with his head held low. They hadn’t needed to go far into the city to find bodies.

  ‘I said no people!’ said Taiga angrily.

  ‘They were already dead,’ replied Kimi. ‘And no one is coming to bury them.’

  Namarii had kept his head bowed during their exchange and Stonvind roused himself
and stood up.

  I am sorry, Stonvind. I failed you. Bittervinge outsmarted me in the air and I did not return fast enough to protect you in a moment of need.

  Stonvind snatched up the nearest corpse with a jerk of his head. A moment later and it was gone. Kimi doubted he even chewed the body.

  The humans, the ones who use the arcane, work in Troikas. Stonvind cast his words into the minds of everyone present. And that is how it must be for us. A dragon does not have friends, you say. A dragon does not scout, you say. A dragon only keeps company with those they find useful. Stonvind snorted a black plume of smoke that let everyone know exactly what he felt about that. That is Bittervinge’s way of thinking. We have to be better than that.

  ‘Well said.’ Taiga was smiling broadly at the dark grey dragon. ‘Now eat up the rest of these corpses before they start to spoil.’ Kimi felt a little sick as Stonvind made the next three bodies disappear as quickly as the first one had.

  ‘Would you like to say anything, Your Highness?’ said Taiga. ‘Now that we’re all here.’ All eyes turned to Kimi, and Namarii withdrew a little way.

  ‘It seems to me,’ said Kimi, ‘that I’ve been failing you too. At first I was afraid you would get hurt, and then I was afraid we couldn’t defeat Bittervinge, and I lost faith in myself and the goddess.’ She rubbed her eye and told herself it was the campfire smoke. ‘I lived underground for five years, working in a forge with no hope of escape. Now I find myself thrust into impossible situations, with incredible beings, but I’m just a young woman from Yamal grieving her father.’

  You are the slayer of Veles, replied Namarii, lowering his head in deference.

  You are the one who fed us in the darkness, replied Stonvind.