Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  ‘No,’ she said, quietly, defeated. Fate was a hopeless beast. She cursed herself again, for the hundredth time that week. Why had she ever looked? ‘No, I ain’t. Just seems as though I’m getting the worst of it, is all.’

  ‘Well,’ Samara began, but she trailed off before she could think of anything to say. She let the ice on her hand melt away and went back to her stick-gathering.

  All things considered, Lilith needn’t have kept pace, but she did so to keep Samara happy, or quiet. One of the two. In all honesty, she still cared about the girl’s fate, even though she had come to realise that her own was truly sealed. She resigned it begrudgingly to some sort of motherly instinct. She had spat a great globule of phlegm in the dust when that thought crossed her mind.

  As the sun died its slow death, they came to a low and lonely barrow mound, ringed by a crown of brambles. Samara hacked her way through them with her hands and a couple of spells, clearing the way for Lilith. She strode to the top of the barrow and stamped the top of it as Lilith had taught her. Even in the wildest parts of the world, barrows weren’t very common. They were hasty graves built for the most hated of enemies. It was a true punishment, as it refused the dead the pyre they needed to set their souls free, to set them on the path to the other side. A burial in the cold earth forced a soul to roam the wilds as a ghost, pleading with the living to burn their remains and unshackle them. It was a cruel art, saved for the cruellest.

  The barrow seemed sound enough. Most were old and had a tendency to cave in under any sort of weight. That sort of thing wasn’t a danger for most. Even the hardiest of explorers seldom dared to camp atop a barrow. Ghosts could be bitter beasts.

  As Lilith began to build the pine twigs and branches into a fire, Samara walked in circles around the barrow, looking for the hulking shapes of Valefor and Hokus. They were nowhere to be seen. ‘Is there any food?’ she asked, as her stomach rumbled audibly.

  Lilith nodded and the girl came to sit by her side. She dug through her pack as Samara put her hands to the fire. She soon had the dry twigs crackling, and the cool air began to smell like burning resin.

  Lilith turfed a cloth-wrapped packet onto the dust. The cloth was cold to the touch; another of Samara’s spells. ‘The last of the venison,’ she announced. Samara had brought down a stag during their journey through the Össfen foothills. That was the thing about fire spells: not only could they catch dinner, but they could also cook it at the same time.

  Samara unwrapped the meat and dangled a slice of it over the flames. If there was one thing she had learnt from her years traipsing the wilderness as a child, it was that she hated cold meat. Lilith was not so picky, and she began to wolf down her slice with alacrity. The day’s trudging had given her a powerful hunger.

  As Lilith ate, Samara pondered the silence. Walking made the brain churn, and the last ten miles had made hers think about Lilith. The momentary shred of pity she had felt for the old crone earlier had soon blossomed into a full-blown tapestry of sympathy. Samara wasn’t used to such a thing. She’d tried to ignore it, but it stuck fast. It confused her. It made her uncomfortable.

  Once she had gobbled down her venison, she rubbed her hands on her cloak and cleared her throat. ‘So,’ she said, lunging into the question she had wanted to ask since the pine tree. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  Lilith looked up, a little surprised. She was busy sewing up a hole in her sleeve that a bramble had ripped. ‘I might ask the very same of you, girl. Can’t remember the last time you asked me such a thing.’

  Samara just shrugged. ‘I want to know. There’s something wrong with you, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Such tact, girl.’ Lilith shook her head, and coughed up two words she too had been nursing since the pine. ‘I’m dying,’ she blurted.

  ‘So? You’ve been dying for a long time,’ replied Samara, matter-of-factly. There was no venom in her words. Just plenty of fact.

  Lilith jabbed herself with her needle as she turned to scowl at her. ‘Not in that way, girl, not in the way that we’re all dyin’, in the way that I am going to die. Soon enough.’

  Samara cupped her chin with her hand. ‘Is this about Hokus and Valefor again?’

  ‘No,’ Lilith snorted. She knew the end, and it was not at the end of their claws.

  ‘Then what? How?’

  ‘Don’t matter. Just that it happens soon,’ she muttered. ‘Nothin’ to cry about. Made my peace with it,’ she lied.

  Samara shuffled around to the other side of the fire so she could face the old woman. The fire did different things to each of their faces. Samara leant forward to watch the light play amongst the cracks and canyons of Lilith’s wizened skin. Lilith looked up and watched how the flames softened Samara’s, how it smoothed it and made her look even younger than she already was. How it turned her eyes a russet orange.

  Samara shook her head, remembering several wine-addled evenings of Lilith muttering to herself. ‘So it is true. You did look at your own death.’

  Lilith looked into the flames and said nothing. That silence last for almost half an hour. Samara didn’t bother to press her.

  As the darkness grew thick and oily around them, Lilith began to make herself comfortable. With grunts betraying how sore she truly was, she wriggled around until she had found a hollow in the dust, and then positioned her pack under her head. All the while she kept staring into the flames. It was only when she pulled a small flask from her pocket that Samara piped up. ‘Do you think that’s wise? They’ll be here soon. We’ll be moving on,’ she said, her voice sounding loud against the crackling of the pine twigs.

  Lilith grunted some more. ‘I ain’t drinking myself to a stupor, girl, just warming myself up. S’cold on these wastes,’ she replied. There was a musical popping sound as she thumbed aside the cork of the flask. The sharp tang of mörd escaped.

  Samara didn’t feel the cold. Her magick was growing stronger with every mile they travelled northwards. She could feel it filling her veins again as before. It kept her thoroughly warm. She watched as Lilith took a few sips from the flask, winced, and took a few more. Her wrinkled lips puckered with the taste of the stuff.

  ‘Want a bit?’ Lilith noticed how the girl was staring. She waved the flask in her direction, mindful to keep it away from the fire. It was a well-known fact that the only thing that could start a fire faster than a fire mage was a drop of mörd.

  Samara wrinkled her nose, but took the flask anyway. She sniffed its contents and then immediately regretted it.

  ‘It’ll set fire to your belly,’ Lilith coaxed. She had never let the girl drink before, but what’s the point of knowing the pyre is drawing near and not letting a few morals slip?

  ‘You say that like it’s a good thing.’

  ‘Trust me, girl. Sometimes it’s the only thing that let’s you know you’re still alive.’

  Samara felt another little pang of pity at that reply. Damn emotions. Samara shrugged and took a swig. It probably wasn’t the best idea to take such a bold mouthful, but she did nonethless, and it was all she could do to swallow it before it burnt a hole in her mouth, never mind her belly. She coughed as she tried to take a breath.

  ‘Good, eh?’ smirked Lilith. She waved her hand for the flask but Samara didn’t give it back right away. She pinched the flask between her knees and reached for the knife at her belt. She tugged it free and, holding her hand over the mouth of the flask, dragged the blade across her palm. Dark blood sprang to taste the night air, and as she clenched her fist, drops of it began to dribble into the flask. Lilith watched the whole process wide-eyed. She had thought that she had tasted the last of that blood. She raised herself onto her withered arm and shuffled closer to the fire. Samara kept the blood flowing for a long minute or two, and with each tiny drop, Lilith leant that little bit closer, until she was lying almost in the fire.

  Once Samara was finished, she held out the flask to Lilith. To her surprise, the seer didn’t snatch it, like she had always done, but i
nstead reached out slowly and let her hand linger on the flask before she took it, brushing Samara’s fingers. It was a moment that neither of them ignored, but neither of them could mention. To Samara, it was a gesture of pity, of new and confusing sympathy. To Lilith, it was one that meant she could face the north on her feet, rather than on withered knees. It meant everything. ‘Thank you, girl,’ she mumbled.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Samara replied, her voice equally low. It was a trade of words they were far from used to.

  Lilith put the flask to her lips and tipped its end toward the sky. She gulped it down as quickly as she could manage. Both the mörd and blood stung her, and she had a hard time deciding which was more painful. Within moments, the flask was drained, and Lilith sighed as she dropped it on the ground. She closed her eyes, letting the heat swirl around her stomach. The blood began to make her twitch and flinch, but the strong mörd had also numbed her somewhat, so she simply lay there shaking, rather than doubled-up and wretched as normal.

  After several minutes of convulsing, Lilith began to moan, like a sleeper caught in a dream. It sounded like the drunken moans that Samara had heard through many a rainy night as a girl. She decided to venture a question.

  ‘Did you look, or not?’ she asked, quietly. Lilith took so long to answer that she was about to ask again, only louder, when the seer sighed softly.

  ‘I did,’ she said, words slurred just a little.

  ‘When?’

  Another sigh, as if the words were tough to get out. ‘You were jus’ a baby. Barely a year. Growing so fast though. Never seen a babe grow like you did.’

  Samara pressed on. Maybe it was the mörd, maybe the blood, maybe Lilith had simply stopped caring about the answers, whatever it was, Samara had questions to ask. ‘And how many babes have you seen?’

  ‘More than you think, but always one less than I’d like,’ Lilith answered cryptically, making Samara pull a confused face. The seer groaned then as a wave of cramp spread across her body. Samara wondered if her timing had been a little awry. She turned around to scour the sunset-washed landscape, but there was nothing for miles. Not yet.

  ‘Why did you look?’

  Lilith smirked between pained grimaces. ‘Would you look, if you ‘ad the power to?’

  ‘No. I don’t need to, do I?’

  Lilith shrugged. ‘Well I did. Us mortals can’t help but wantin’ to know the end of a story. People don’t like doubt and they don’t like fate, either. That’s why they came to me in their droves, askin’ me to read their futures with my stones. Half the time I just told them what they wanted to hear and only that. First thing a seer learns is that you can be ruined by knowin’ everything.’

  ‘And that’s what ruined you?’

  ‘Didn’t want to end up like all the others I’d seen over the years. Didn’t want to end up drowned, or stabbed, or crushed by a rock, or fallin’ out of a third-storey window onto a butcher’s cart. Didn’t want to be another future, so I made sure mine was as long as possible. That’s what ruined me, girl, if you have to ask. That and a powerful thirst for wine.’

  ‘So you found Vice?’

  ‘Came across a book in my younger days. Scholar from Arfell didn’t have enough coin to pay for his readin’, so he paid me with a stolen book. All he wanted to know was the name of a girl that worked in his library, so I obliged him. Said it was valuable anyway. Before I could sell it I wound up readin’ it.’

  Samara nodded along. ‘Let me guess. It was a book about daemons, or blood, or something?’ she ventured.

  Lilith smiled, eyes still blissfully closed. ‘All three, girl. Imagine my surprise when my stones soon found me a pale king so close, in my very own city. Almost killed me he did, when I first approached ‘im, but I think he saw somethin’ useful in me. Vice put me to use over the years for his various little schemes, and he kept me just as alive as he needed me to be. His own future was hard to read, being as powerful as he was, but he seemed happy with what I cast for him, thank those bastard gods,’ she said, with a dry laugh. ‘He taught me all about them too, and you.’

  Samara pushed on, trying her luck. ‘So what did you see? In your own future?’

  Lilith’s smile turned upside down at that. ‘None of your business, girl. That future’s mine an’ mine alone. Keep your nose out.’

  ‘But you already told me it was death. What happens?’ asked Samara, as blunt and as tactless as a spade to the face, like any young, inquisitive person can be.

  ‘Why, so you can help?’ replied the seer. ‘You’ve never cared. Why start now?’

  Samara wrapped her arms around her knees as she leant forward. ‘Don’t know,’ she said. It was an honest answer. ‘Why not?’

  Lilith scoffed. ‘ ‘Cause I’ve seen that moment many times, girl, and even though I can’t read your fortune, I know you ain’t in any way a part of mine. Not even you and all your magick can change that.’

  Samara pouted. ‘Suit yourself.’

  ‘I will, thank ‘ee,’ replied Lilith. A moment passed.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Samara asked.

  ‘About what, girl?’

  ‘About you. About dying?’

  Lilith opened her eyes and squinted at the night-bruised sky, as if reading the twilight’s stars. ‘Sure as nails.’

  ‘Why won’t you tell me?’ Samara pleaded, like a child asking for a sweet.

  Lilith stretched across the dirt, searching for a warm patch. She didn’t answer for a while. She groaned and grimaced again as more pain flitted through her body. She pulled her hood down over her face so that all Samara could see were her lips. They were already looking less-winkled. It was then that she began to talk. ‘It happens in the north. The far north. I’m wearing clothes just like these. Black boots, rope belt. I’m running. I’m covered in snow, dirty, bloody snow. There are black rocks all around me. Cracked ice. Then he appears.’ Lilith shivered, as she had done in the privacy of darkness many a time before.

  ‘Who?’ Samara flexed a fist. ‘I can stop him, whoever he is,’ she stated.

  Lilith shook her head. ‘Not this one. Not this time. He belongs to another, an’ I already seen to that.’

  Samara didn’t know what to say. All she could do was wonder at the strange little ache that had developed just above her stomach. It was an odd sensation. She frowned at it, tucking her chin under her cold arms. Several minutes passed before she realised she could blame the old venison, and so she did. She watched Lilith as she curled around something square and thick in her pack. ‘So what does that make that? Our collection of skins? Is it a… what do you call it? Your legacy? Is that the word? You can’t even look at it,’ she asked.

  ‘That’s the word alright, dear.’ Lilith smiled with red lips. ‘It used to be insurance, for when this was all over. But now there ain’t no point. I won’t be coming back, and nobody wants it that can save me. So it’s a legacy indeed. For posterity.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Lilith shrugged. ‘Vice… your father… said it once. For the future, he said.’

  Samara was busy rubbing her chin against her arms, agitated, confused. ‘Just tell me who. Who does this to you?’

  ‘Don’t change a thing if I tell you. Told you, I’ve already seen to his end. Don’t you worry.’ There was a tinge of regret in her voice then.

  ‘And you’re sure the stones are working right this time?’ Samara leant forward.

  A little and rare smile appeared on Lilith’s face. ‘Like I said, girl, sure as nails. I seen enough futures come true to know I’m right. Stones never lie, and I’ve asked them enough questions to know it all,’ she whispered. Lilith closed her eyes then. The mörd was fading. Her face was a scrunched-up picture of discomfort and twitching pain. Her body had begun to shake as if she were deathly cold. The withered hand wrapped in her folded sleeve was fidgeting.

  An hour passed this way. Samara stared at the flames and tried to decipher her irritating new emotions, while Lilith fell into a fit
ful sleep, enduring the borrowed blood burning through her old veins. Night fell on the wastes, black and cold. Only a thin, broken fingernail of moon gave them any light, save for the flames of their fire. In the distant south, a black shape of a pine tree sat against the night sky.

  For wanderers, travellers, explorers, and the downright lost, there is a constant confusion in the fact that the more barren and emptiness a landscape is, the more numerous and worryingly vocal its nightlife is. Samara had spent her life in the wild, but she could never shake the feeling of trepidation when something hairy and fanged howled uncomfortably close. She had always said it was her human side shivering; a sliver of something ingrained from the ages of darkness, when humanity had gathered around campfires and whispered of monsters. She eyed the black shapes skittering across the landscape, using her spells to watch them as clear as day. Foxes, rats, owls, voles, jackals… they all crawled from whatever hole they had made their nests in, and came to cry and hoot and whine to the night. There were other things out there too. Samara could feel bigger eyes upon them. Unnatural eyes. Fires and barrows. A combination that made ghosts lick misty lips.

  Samara saw them moments later. The two shapes strode across the landscape like actors striding onto stage. Where they walked, the things of the night scattered. Fearful yelps echoed across the plain.

  Samara nudged Lilith with her foot and the seer snuffled something derogatory and altogether foul. She slowly came awake, still halfway into a strange dream. ‘They’re here,’ said Samara, calmly and quietly. Lilith heard a slight nervousness in her voice, like that of a favoured servant hearing the sound of a king’s boots on the stairs. Trembling, Lilith pushed herself upright. She winced at the pain that flitted through her limbs. The blood was still at work. ‘Where?’ she asked, squinting past the flames. She could hear the thumping of their feet striding up the incline of the barrow. Samara fell to her knee. Lilith did the same. Valefor came first out of the gloom, grinning like a fiery jester as usual, and then Hokus, narrow-eyed and curious.