Voices of Blaze (Volume 5 of The Fireblade Array)

by H. O. Charles

  irritable at best. If this was the sort of reception a womaniser would regularly receive, were the rewards really worth the hassle? He grasped the reins tightly, and ground his teeth as he travelled on. It took him another two days of secretive village stops and night-time riding to reach Curkovi, but Tyshar seemed content to gallop for large portions ofthe distance. The sunsets proved to be as fiery and red as the Blazes themselves

  when viewed from the treetop settlements, and that, combined with the scenery along the ride, did help to calm the monsters in Morghiad’s mind a little.

  The people who had not met his son were warm and generous toward him when he asked for guidance, and life amongst the spirewood trees was quiet and protected from the very worst of winds. Perhaps, when Artemi returned and all oftheir overriding duties were done, they

  could both live here for a short while. It would have to be in a place Kalad had not yet visited, but that ought not to be too hard to discover.

  Don’t get angry, Morghiad repeated to himself as he handed Tyshar’s reins to a buxom, smiling stable hand. Don’t get angry. He turned from her, ordered one of the inn’s servants to take his belongings to the room he had paid for, and made his way to the central platform ofthe town. As it turned out, Curkovi only had two inns amongst its hanging buildings. One was made from the finest and most intricately carved hardwood that Morghiad had ever seen. Sprigs of herb shrubs and perfumed flowers grew out of it, while its clientele looked to be clean and welldressed. The other tavern appeared to have been assembled from jagged pieces of an old ship, the windows were dark holes that revealed nothing

  of any life within the building, and one man stood vomiting outside of it.

  Morghiad decided to look in the rougher tavern first. It was not that he had a low opinion of his youngest son – more that he felt he was getting to know what sorts of adventures excited the boy. Not a boy, Morghiad reminded himself.

  He readied the speech he had rehearsed so that it would spring from his tongue as soon as

  he spoke to Kalad, and stepped into the shadows of the doorway. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the very poor illumination that emanated from a single, feeble lamp, and for his nose to grow accustomed to the sour smells of old beer and damp wood. He heard a low growl, and immediately identified the wolf from which it came. So, Danner still did not like him much.

  He was surprised, however, when the return of his sight

  revealed that Danner’s anger was not directed at him, but at another patron of the inn. A burly, blonde-haired Sokirin woman, covered from head to toe in piercings, had a man pinned to the table and was busily shouting profanities at him. The recipient of her insults was black haired, bearded, and undoubtedly Kalad. All plans of rehearsed speeches and prepared words departed Morghiad’s mind, and he approached quietly.

  “...and if you think that you can follocking-well get away with waving your cock about all over this town, sticking it into whatever you please, then you have another thing coming! How’s about we cut the damned thing off? Then perhaps you’ll learn!” The woman withdrew a black blade from her pocket. “Call the wolf off, or you get this in the neck rather than just the member.”

  “The wolf stays,” Morghiad

  said. He had already withdrawn his sword of white stone, and though he might have appeared relaxed to the most uneducated of fighters, he was very ready to use it. “Your fight with this man is over.”

  Kalad’s eyes widened appreciably when he saw who had spoken in his defence, but his assailant did not so much as blink. Instead, her hand twitched to shove the dagger into Kalad’s

  Morghiad leapt toward her to make a strike with his sword, but was too slow to reach her before her blade thrust into Kalad’s torso. The flat side of Morghiad’s sword knocked her backwards, causing her to release her grip upon her weapon, and she fell to the floor with a loud grunt.

  Kalad was groaning loudly, and clutching at the hilt in an attempt to pull it out of himself. He succeeded, but already

  something odd was happening to his skin. While the dagger still rattled on the floorboards, a bloom of darkness spread over Kalad’s face, down his neck and through to his fingertips. It turned to black, and became shiny like the surface of an oil slick. Like an eisiel.

  Artemi had described it once – that it looked to be painful, but had served to save his life. In years before, there had been a moment of

  embarrassment when a trickster had tried to test this particular quirk of Kalad’s, and had slipped tiny amounts of pinh into his food. The transformation had taken an hour to manifest, but the timing had caused him to turn into an eisiel during one of Artemi’s audiences with her public. It had only been Silar’s itchiness from his predictive powers that had provided him with enough foresight to insist that Kalad be kept at the rear of

  the room on that day, and close to friends who understood. For the people of Calidell to have seen such things in their royal family would have damaged Jade’an popularity immeasurably, even if Acher had been more of a monster than Kalad could ever be.

  But his changed appearance was all that was required to force his attacker’s eyes to roll backward into perfect, white circles. Her head thumped as it

  hit the floor beneath, and she was out.

  “Kal,” Morghiad said quietly, re-sheathing his sword. “With me. Now.” He held his hand out to his son, who was standing but still pinh-covered and hesitant. Even his clothes had turned to the thick, black substance that Morghiad had seen dripping from Mirel’s creations – almost as if he had been dunked into one of Gilkore’s barrels of the stuff. How was that

  possible? “Kal!”

  Kalad looked at him with suspicion, or at least it seemed like he did. It was hard to tell beneath his mask of eisiel blood. But then the dark liquid began to recede, and Morghiad knew his opportunity was now.

  He grabbed Kalad by the arm, and all but dragged him out ofthe tavern. Dannerfollowed them eagerly as they paced down the walkway and toward the inn where Morghiad was staying.

  When they arrived at the entrance, he turned to appraise his son, whose features and clothing had by now returned to normal. A bearded, confused and dark-eyed version of himself looked back at him.

  “How is that stab wound?” Morghiad went to inspect the tear in Kalad’s shirt, but his son caught his hand before he could.

  “It won’t have left a mark. I’ve had enough encounters like that to know.”

  Don’t get angry about it. “If you caused less trouble, perhaps fewer people would want to stab you.”

  “That didn’t stop you last time,” Kalad said. “What are you doing here?”

  Danner sat on his haunches at their feet and looked between them both expectantly. The wolf appeared to have decided to be more tolerant of Morghiad’s presence on this occasion.

  “I need your help, Kal.”

  “I don’t need guards inside my bedroom. Have you forgotten I bested both of you?!”

  Orwin folded his arms and

  looked across to Koviere. They shared a glance that only seemed to communicate that they thought she was being stupid, and then Orwin said, “You really ought to call Tal Hunter back. You need him watching this door. And the windows. I know he can be... abrasive at times, but he really is the best person for this. And he knows Mirel – knows her tricks.” “He knows I am the queen! Blazes, he must be the only person in this damned city that

  listens to my orders! Get out, both of you!”

  Orwin’s brow darkened and he remained with his feet locked to the pearlescent floor. Evidently, Koviere was to be similarly steadfast in his decision to be an irritating block of stubbornness. Beyond the limits of her chambers, the situation was not much better. Jarynd, Beetan and Korali loitered at the door for most hours of the day, and had done so with little relief

  in the month since Mirel had escaped. Almost all of that squad had made it their business to become the queen’s personal guard, which might not have been burdensome i
f she hadn’t already been obliged to accept another personal guard large enough to populate a whole village. It was ridiculous!

  What sort of queen was she if she could not rule those closest to her? But of course she knew the answer. These soldiers were

  more afraid of her parents than they would ever be of her, and they protected her out a duty to their old, beloved leaders. Well, perhaps some ofthem liked her a little bit, but that squad was her mother’s pet dog before it was hers. Ifthere was one thing Medea had realised during her short reign, it was that warriors with political ideas oftheir own could be dangerous things. It was all well and good while they were loyal to her, but if they ever

  decided she was to be deposed, what could she do to stop them?

  For the moment, she had decided to occupy them with the business of finding Mirel, though anyone with a brain would know that search would be a fruitless one. And the business ofjust how she had escaped... Medea ground her teeth together, and went to gaze out of her window. The white city glowed gloriously beneath the spring sunshine, and was interrupted only by the

  colourful clothing that glittered upon the backs ofthe citizens that streamed through it. The river still flowed powerfully across the main square, filled with the recent rainwaters from the last of the winter storms, and then it coursed away to the eastern area ofthe city.

  Medea did not want to look at that part of it; it made her stomach twist into a thousand knots every time she did, but her eyes travelled there before she

  could prevent them from doing so. She cursed as soon as she did, however. The rot had spread since that morning, and already a new ring of houses bore the brown stain ofthe canker.

  “The people say it is a sign of something more to come,” Medea said softly. And when the city finally dissolved, who would call her queen and kneel before herthen?

  “Good leaders are born in hard times; the great leaders are

  born in the hardest,” Koviere responded. Even in his quietest voice, the furniture seemed to vibrate from the lowest tones of it.

  Medea knew enough to understand she was not great; not like her mother and father had been, even if she could find some ways to improve upon her brother’s indecisiveness. Though she hated to speak ill of him, he had been too kind in many respects. Even during his busiest hours, when he should have been deciding on the future of his people’s education or similar matters, he would make time to listen to her complain about the difficulties of patrolling the borders. Of course, she now knew that those difficulties were trivialities in comparison to the troubles of ruling. There’s no one who could guard this country better, he would say to her as he squeezed her shoulders. Ineed you, he would say with a glint in

  his green eyes and a flash of a smile. Now she needed him.

  How typical of fate, the Blazes and all of the follocking Law-keepers to hand her a throne at this time, of all times! She would forever be known as the queen who presided over the decline of one ofthe richest and most beautiful countries in the world, and increasingly, she felt there were fewer things she could do to prevent it.

  “Koviere, I would like you to send for my secretary.”

  “My queen, I’m here to guard you, not act as y-”

  “Just do it.”

  It was likely that he pulled a face behind Medea’s back, but she did not turn to acknowledge it. Such complaints were unusual for Koviere though. Was she really so poor a queen that even the most loyal of her subordinates would think it acceptable to speak to her in such a way? Perhaps she needed to be

  firmer. “Wait,” she said, turning as he paused in front of the doors. “Understand this, Koviere Dohsal-”

  He tilted his head as if to listen to a fly that buzzed by his ear.

  “-If you address me in that familiar manner again, I will see you thrown into the cells beneath this city.” Medea raised her chin and narrowed her eyes for the full effect. It was a pose her mother had employed often. “I

  am not to be spoken to as a child any more. I am your queen, and you will do as I command.”

  He hesitated as if to say something, but evidently thought better of it. With a bow deep enough to make his ponytail flop over his shoulder and toward the floor, he turned and did as bidden.

  “We just want to protect you – ah, my queen,” Orwin said after the doors clicked shut, “Koviere is one ofthe few men

  here skilled enough to keep you from most deaths. He could slow Mirel by enough seconds to allow you to run free.”

  “I shall not run. I shall never run.” Running would have been a pointless endeavour, anyway. She knew enough from her mother’s tales to recognise that Mirel had the determination to chase her quarry for eternity, if she thought it both necessary and amusing.

  Orwin made some sort of grunting noise, but thankfully did

  not question her thinking any further.

  Medea’s secretary, a broad woman wearing a dress that had been in fashion some fifty years earlier, soon swayed into the chambers. She had enough forethought to bring seals, wax, ink and parchment with her, but such considerations were part of her nature, and precisely why Medea had chosen her for the post in the first place.

  “Thank you for coming so

  quickly, Hana. If you would seat yourself at my desk and begin writing?”

  Lady Hana Frelle took up her seat with such speed and efficiency that she could have been forgiven for the extent to which she made the furniture creak and groan. Within moments, her ink-stained fingers hovered above an unfurled parchment, a charged quill nestled between them.

  Medea took a deep breath, adjusted the green and black scarf she wore about her neck, and instructed, “Begin writing: I, Medea Elitheya Cibale of House Jade’an, Queen of Calidell and of Gialdin, Defender of the Crystal Throne and Guardian ofthe Gate of Light, do hereby name my heir.”

  “Wait – what are you doing?!” Orwin exclaimed.

  Medea gave him a look that could wither oaks. “Nothing that concerns you. Be quiet, or be

  dismissed.” She continued, “On the event of my death, the crown shall pass to Sahlkendar of House Forllan. If he should die before me, the duty of ruling-”

  “Sahlke?” Orwin blurted, “You’re going to give it to Sahlke? Have you lost your mind? And what about Kalad?”

  “Kalad does not want it, and Sahlke will do brilliantly. His family have worked with ours for many years. They are still wellregarded here, and Silar has been gone long enough for people to grow nostalgic about him. The other brothers are not made for it, but Sahlke’s temperament is perfect.”

  “My queen,” Koviere said in his best attempt at a whisper, “Not wanting it is exactly what made your mother and father such excellent rulers. Those who want nothing more but power... they are the dangerous ones-”

  “Not wanting to rule is exactly what has led to such short reigns in Calidell. None of our house have sat upon that throne for a full century. Not even my grandmother managed it. Calidell needs stability. Sahlke will be stable. My country must come before my House.” Medea pulled at the lace on the sleeves of her dress as she finished speaking. She had not always been a fashionable woman, and especially not when she had sported swords and ridden with the patrols around the country. In those days, she had been keener to emulate the clothing that her mother wore. But now she was queen, and a queen had to establish her own identity. Besides, the silks that arrived on Calbeni ships were so very luxuriant, it would have been a terrible waste not to enjoy them. Orwin frowned. “Sahlke has been married for years and produced no children. I don’t think he wants to. And you know who will succeed him if he does

  not perform...”

  “Sahlke is just the sort of man to have the foresight to make plans for that situation. Silar-”

  “I don’t mean Silar - Seffe!”

  “Seffe is... I’m sure Sahlke will be able to make that decision when the time comes.” Medea paused as her mind processed the thought more carefully. “Hana, we will complete this document w
hen I have some peace in my chambers. I need to

  take some air.”

  Hana nodded politely. Medea had not noticed it before, but the lady’s hand was shaking as she held the quill above the parchment and she was blinking unusually rapidly.

  Medea decided to add, “Please keep this information under your petticoats. There’s no need for anyone else but we and the named parties to know of this business.” With that, she departed her chambers and made her way toward the city. Her ridiculous retinue followed of course, and that only slowed her progress through the streets. How she missed the days when she could ride her horse through them, unaccompanied by anyone but her brother! Those had been golden days indeed.

  Inevitably, they headed westward and to the site ofthe decay, where a large group of citizens still held their vigil at the edge of the advancing disease.

  The Watchers, as they now called themselves, had been there for the best part of a month, as if staring at the rot might somehow slow its progress. Medea had seen no evidence that their efforts did much at all, though she admired their dedication. They stood and sat along the border of the white stone that remained healthy, and they variously hummed and sang their prayers to Achellon. Beyond that border of stone lay a brown sea