by G. D. Penman
She left a red trail behind her as she pulled her way agonisingly slowly across to the fountain. In the basin there was a slimy mould growing but in between its putrid swirls she found little pools of moderately clear water. She drank her fill, mouthful by sour mouthful. Then she just rested, leaning against the side.
It was an old carving, older than any she had seen in the cities. She recognised Negrath of course, with his lightning bolt in hand. She saw Vulkas with his great sword held up in triumph. She saw Walpurgan, hands hooked into dripping talons, although she had a strange sickle shape carved in the sky above her that Lucia didn't recognise. She expected the next to be Ochress, riding a great wave with a spear in hand but it was not. She realised that she had not dragged herself around to the far side of the structure yet so it had to accommodate more than just the four Eaters.
She frowned and forced herself to move around. “Not like I have anything better to do,” she muttered through cracked lips. The next eater was clad in colossal armour with extremely harsh edges, the one after that was clad in flowing robes and had her hands raised up to what looked like a ball of fire in the sky. The final Eater, before she came around to Ochress with a fishing trident, was little more than a child elevated from the ground on what may have been a gust of wind or a cloud.
Lucia's stomach cramped and when she curled herself around it, she pulled on every injury across her back and body. She whimpered for a moment before she got control of herself. Terrible injuries were no excuse to complain, she thought to herself.
Looking at the dragon at the centre of the carving, its wings torn and its scales broken she started to sing the chorus of Great Dragons Dance to herself. It was her favourite part, before the brave Chosen came to drag them down from the sky and bury them in the ground forever more so that the people could mine their metals. When the song was just about fire in the sky and the beautiful beasts that the world would never see again. Her eyes were drawn back to that ball of fire above the robed woman and she tried to let her mind accommodate the idea that once there had been seven Eaters and now there were four.
It was blasphemous, obviously, but it left her fixated on a single idea. This meant that the Eaters could die. It was a chilling thought, without the Eaters to protect them, who would keep humanity safe. Her stomach, full of cold water and nothing else twitched again. She was going to starve down here in this cavern under the glass, she was going to starve and there wasn't anything that she could do about it.
She was still singing the refrain to herself, “Dance dragons, dance. This is your last chance. So dance a dragon's dance. Their steel is called for you.”
She stopped herself, both because she didn't want to waste her energy and because she didn't like the end of the song with the Chosen triumphant and the dragons lost from the world forever. It had a melancholy note to it that she did not need right now.
She dragged herself to the far side of the courtyard as a comet soared past overhead, lighting up the entire cavern with shifting green tinted light. There had been a city here, all turned to ash and rubble, some buried down here and some left on the surface. The cavern was a great bowl that she had landed on a distant edge of and at its centre there was a great star-burst shape of soot. She crawled through one of the open archways in the direction of that great explosion but something stopped her.
Wedged, tip down between two flagstones was what looked at first like a pitted shield but as she drew closer she saw that the tapered shape was not dented, it merely had a grain running through it. She reached out a hand to touch the scale as it glimmered. She touched the side and traced an edge sharp enough to slit her hand open.
Something gave her pause, she brought her fingers to her face and sniffed at them. She could smell cooked meat. Her stomach growled and gave her a jolt so she pulled herself towards the scale, then past the scale to look at its rear side. Growing from the rear side of the scale, charred and blackened near the edges and juicy and tender near the centre was stringy meat.
She had torn a handful away before she even realised what she was doing. This cavern had not seen a human being in so long that it was impossible that this meat was still safe to eat. But as he hunger grew she brought it closer to her face and sniffed it again. It smelled delicious, not like the beetle meat that they had to subsist on out in the dark, it smelled red and ripe and before she stopped herself again she moved it from her nose to her mouth and took a bite. Clear juices ran down her chin and she moaned at the taste.
She ate the rest of the handful, then eagerly pulled more of the stringy flesh off of the scale, even tugging on a ragged tendon that seemed to stretch down between the flagstones to dislodge a hunk of meat that was hiding there, barely harmed by the fire. It was still a bright red and she could feel it pulse in her hands before she bit into it. The sweet salty flavour of life ran down her throat. She ate every piece of meat that she could tear from the scale then she pushed her face against it and scraped her teeth over the metallic surface to remove any last remaining scraps.
Her stomach was distended by the time she had finished eating and she realised with horror that she had finished it all. There would be no rationed food to keep her alive as the cycles went on. She didn't understand what could have so completely overruled her reason. She lay down on the flagstones and fell asleep until the heat rose again.
Lucia was burning in a shell of steel. A cocoon of it was wrapped tight around her in her fever dreams. She was being roasted inside it and as she grew hotter and hotter her skin cracked and peeled, revealing the shining scales beneath. She pressed against the cocoon as she grew larger and larger and when she burst free her wings spread so wide that the shadow covered the entire world.
It was a disappointment to open her dry eyes to see the ash covered flagstones. She pulled herself, hand over hand, to the fountain, dampened her fingertips and rubbed them on her lips and eyes. Her skin was hot to the touch and her vision slipped in and out of focus. She stood up in the centre of the fountain and sucked a slow trickle of water from the copper pipe in the dragon's mouth. She wished that she had a light so she could at least tell if what she was seeing was real or a blurred imagining.
Her eyes slipped further out of focus and she saw some sort of ragged script on the stone, glass and ash laying around her. She saw little fragments of words she didn't know drifting through the air, then duller than all the other words she saw one that seemed familiar to her.
Pressure built in her head as she looked at the word intently and the pressure was suddenly released as the word lit up in the air. The pupils of her eyes had divided into two, connected tenuously in an hourglass shape but as she returned her focus to the real world, so too did her eyes return to normal.
There was a flicker of flame hanging in the air where she had conjured the word, barely larger than a candle's wick. Some of the foul smelling gas drifted through and caught alight with a flash. Her body gave out, emptied of energy, and she toppled to the floor again. She was dimly aware that some part of this impossible thing that she had done was missing.
The power flowed from her, emptied her, but it did not flow into her. It was like realising for the first time that something valuable had been stolen. She drifted back into her fevered dreams, steam rising from her skin wherever water had touched it, without ever having realised in her feeding frenzy that her bones had set and her wounds had closed.
Chapter 5- The Girl in the Glass
Still harbouring a quiet resentment to Atius for his involvement in the shaming of the poor Pontifex, Kaius went through his Forms of Bone in his private courtyard. The Beloved had gifted it to him for what was ostensibly the rest of his stay in the city, but could very well be the rest of his life.
The ivory pillars that surrounded the central square had phosphorescent lichen coiled up them, dousing the packed sand of the floor in an ambient green light. He had moved through the forms around twenty times since being dismissed so casually by the Beloved. His mind churned as h
e went through each of their conversations until it was just a confusing blur, so now he took to the Forms. Running through them until his mind was silent.
Malius approached the courtyard and waited politely until Kaius had finished his last set.
Back when Kaius was learning the Forms of Steel under his tutelage there was always an extended sarcastic commentary after he had finished. Malius seemed to be reaching for something to say even now but eventually he gave in and fell silent, allowing Kaius that moment of respect before moving on to business, “Has the Beloved informed you of our schedule?”
Kaius smiled, “I am to meet the Chosen of Vulkas at their border. The Beloved did not inform me if I was to travel alone or in company.”
Malius scratched at his upper lip, “If one of the Marked go it shows we have no faith in your abilities. If you travel alone then it might be a little too tempting a target, the two of them could work together to eliminate you from the contest before it has even begun. Seek out Sister Metharia as you are crossing the Ashen Dales, she can accompany you, give you a bit of fun too I will wager, such a sweet girl.”
It was Kaius' turn to look uncomfortable, “I had promised to bring her news from the city when I was next in the Dales, this will be a good opportunity.”
Malius smirked, “Well, you can tell her that her favourite instructor is looking forward to seeing her when her assignment ends. You can tell her that her family still fares well although the city is abounding with rumours that her grandfather has taken a new lover and has been devoting cycles of attention to him while neglecting the affairs of state.”
Kaius looked perplexed and Malius pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head and explained slowly, as if to an idiot, “The Beloved is her grandfather.”
Kaius still looked perplexed and Malius had to assume it was an affectation, that Valerius was trying to keep him secret very poorly. The Beloved must have wanted it known or he wouldn't have been so blatant in giving his attentions.
The possibility that Kaius genuinely hadn't become the Beloved's latest acquisition did not cross Malius' mind so he side-stepped the issue, “Shall we begin with your training again?”
Kaius took a long moment then shook his head, “Our last session made it clear to me that once our level of skill in the Forms of Steel has been reached it becomes less about training and more about cleverness, about tricks and misleading your opponent. And with all due respect, I believe that was the lesson you were trying to impart on me and repeating it will not help me further.”
It was the longest sentence that Kaius had ever said to Malius and he was surprised at the hidden depths of understanding under the younger man's simple facade. He seemed pleased, “Very good. What shall you do with yourself until it is time to meet with whatever slab of meat Vulkas has furnished us with this year?”
That was simple, “I am going back out into the dark. I need to find Metharia before the day and the Ashen Dales are a very large area to cover. If I am very lucky I shall be attacked by some ghuls and add their dirty tricks to my repertoire alongside yours.”
It took Malius a moment to realise that he was making a joke and join him in a smirk, “Kaius my boy. I may have taught you all the dirty tricks that you know, but I haven't taught you all the dirty tricks that I know.”
It took only an hour or so to lay hands on proper robes again and make his way out of the city. Now that he was known he did not need to delay at checkpoints or have to snarl at the pushy insect vendors. One of the smoke vendors, possibly the one from before, possibly not, had his back to him as he walked through and struck him with a censer full of his product.
Kaius called strength almost without thinking and crushed the perforated brass orb in his hand. The vendor had greasy hair cut in last season's style, shaved up the sides, and she flicked it back out of her face with an angry pout on her face before she followed the censer chain to his fist, then up past his purple robed chest to his face.
She let go of the chain and Kaius dropped the still smoking mess onto the ground. “Such sorrow, Chosen. Forgive me. Let me drown in my sorrow.”
She dropped to her knees and he stared down at her with impassive eyes, he looked away, across the pots arrayed on her barrel's top and asked her, “Which of these begins to smoke the fastest when lit?”
Her terror was quickly transformed into avarice as his words penetrated the drugs haze, she thought for a moment then pointed to a large green urn. “Morton's weed burns up the fastest but it is a weak flavour, I could make you a blend of some of the strongest, finest herbs from across the..”
He cut her off with an upheld hand. “Blend something slow burning with the Morton's weed, I want it to produce instantly when I set it alight and clear within a few minutes. Can you do that or do I need to seek out a more competent apothecary?”
She poured a dash of what smelled like vasca oil into a wooden bowl, dropped a handful of the Morton's weed then sprinkled in a few dried clumps from the other clay pots before crushing it together into a dirty little grey-green cube that she held out to him.
He lifted it up from her palm without their skin coming in contact and tucked it away inside the waistband of his robes. He nodded politely to her still outstretched hand and said, “My thanks.”
Then he walked out of the city gates without looking back, calling steel and speed the moment he was past the press of people moving along the roads by the city.
He passed the mushroom and insect farms that fed the city. Their soil enriched by the ash blowing in from the west and kept moist by Valerius' summoned storms. Then he reached the first great grey dunes of ash piled up on the dark soil. His passing threw up a cloud of dust and dirt behind him. He casually leapt the soot clogged river that marked the official border of the Dales and skidded to a halt, looking back at the city with a moment of wistfulness, the feeling surprised him.
He built up speed again before he hit the shifting desert. It took him half of the cycle to cross over to the Glasslands, at their border he saw the first signs of Metharia's work. The village by the border was burning, the plume of smoke disappearing into the empty black sky, it had been home to a ghul two years ago and he assumed it was home to the thief he had killed just before being recalled. The hovels were mainly underground, reinforced against the weight of constantly shifting ash with salvaged wooden beams that were now burnt away. The entire village was collapsing under its own weight, the bodies buried unseen and the fires smothered.
Kaius mounted the tall dune by the Glasslands and looked out for the tell-tale glint of steel but even with the extra height he could not make Metharia out. He released his steel and closed his eyes, sniffing at the air and cocking his head from side to side. The shifting ash was the only sound for a moment then he heard a distant whisper from behind him. He walked down to the plane of glass, his feet slipping a little on the smooth surface, he listen for another long moment, then crouched, putting his bare hand against the glass, feeling the vibrations.
He peered down through the blackened glass and he could swear that he saw a flicker of firelight beneath it. He walked across the glass, listening and looking for any other flickers.
Through the soles of his feet he felt a rhythmic pulse. He saw the shimmer of light again and he called steel into a heavy blade in his right hand. He drove it down into the glass and with a twist of his arm sent cracks off in every direction. He hauled it back out with a shriek and transformed it into a war-hammer of such great proportions that he needed to call strength just to hold it. He leapt into the air and brought the hammer down on the point of weakness he had created, punching a great hole into the glass.
He called the steel back around him as he fell, called speed, held onto strength and used the combination of his three gifts from Negrath to transform a deadly fall into an acrobatic display of beauty, leaping from one great shard of tumbling crystal to the next before he landed with a crash amidst the splinters of falling glass.
Little flickers of f
ire came to life and died in the dust filled air. He was in the midst of a courtyard, a stalactite of solid glass pierced the ancient flagstones behind him, sending something metallic clattering away into the night and bursting some buried plumbing into a quiet shower around him. It fell quiet as the last of the glass settled in place, then he heard a trembling voice making sounds he had never heard before, rhyming words with shifting cadence.
The music that he had heard in the city was nothing like this, it was all rhythmic clanking of metal and ethereal wails and he had been informed at a very early age that it was beyond his intellect to appreciate. He came around the side of the block of glass and saw the girl lying with her back propped against a fountain.
There had been a lot of noise for a few minutes there, but Lucia was well past the point of believing everything her eyes and ears were telling her. Sometimes she could see something like writing, sometimes it was more like tangled threads woven from starlight. Other times it was nothing at all but she could hear footsteps on top of the glass a few miles away.
She waited until the worst of the noisy hallucination had past and went back to singing The Ballad of Kurgan Hall. The brave Chosen had just barred the door to the village hall with all the people inside and the demons were circling. His steel sang against their armoured hides and the tempo of the song kept building until there were no more breaks between the lines, only an endless stream of colliding words.
It ended abruptly when she saw the shape of a man come into her line of sight. This was a new delusion. She perked up as it approached, the fever might still be raging but at least it had brought her some company, or an audience. She wished for a little light to see him by and a whisp of flame appeared to his side. He was wearing armour like the heroes in her songs. It had a pointed visor that hid his face but it was so simple, interlocking plates of steel without engraving or decoration.