Sacrifice

by Christopher Mitchell

  She glanced at him, kicked her heels, and they took off down the road.

  Chapter 31

  Four Mages

  S outhern Plateau – 13 th Day, Second Third Winter 507

  ‘This is a lovely part of the world,’ Laodoc said from the wagon’s bench as they travelled down the narrow path. On their left a steep cliff rose, but to their right they had a grand view over the rolling foothills of the Plateau. They had followed a river from close to its source, where it had emerged as a patch of boggy ground, before widening as the miles went by. According to their map, it meandered all the way across the Plateau, before emptying into the Inner Sea.

  ‘At least the snow’s gone,’ Shella said. ‘Hate the stuff. It’s still freezing though.’

  ‘It’s warmer here than it was in Silverstream,’ Bridget said, sitting in the empty space at the back of the cart. ‘Fuck knows what it’ll be like further north when summer comes.’

  Shella smirked. ‘I can’t wait to see you Kellach savages sweating your asses off. Even Plateau City’s roasting in summer. The Holdings will be like a furnace.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it,’ said Agang, walking alongside the wagon. ‘All this cold down south, it’s not for me.’

  ‘Will our skin turn dark like the Holdings folk?’ asked Dean from the other side of the wagon .

  Shella frowned at him.

  ‘No,’ said Laodoc, ‘though you might tan a little.’

  Shella laughed. ‘Yeah, Dean. You’ll go bright pink.’

  Laodoc shook his head. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Shella. The Kellach Brigdomin don’t sunburn. It might be something to do with their healing powers, but I never saw a single one with burns when we were last in the city.’

  ‘Fucksake,’ Shella said. ‘Those big bastards get all the breaks.’

  ‘The poor wee Rakanese,’ Dyam smirked as she walked along beside them. ‘Shit eyesight, shit hearing, keep catching stupid wee diseases like colds, whatever the fuck they are, being short as fuck, not able to eat loads of stuff in case ye get poisoned…?’

  ‘Come on,’ said Shella, ‘there must be some poison that’ll kill you.’

  ‘I don’t believe there is,’ said Laodoc. ‘Back when Bridget was my captive in the Rahain Capital, a professor belonging to my research institute once tried to prove it.’ He glanced at the Brig woman. ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘Aye,’ she said, rolling her eyes.

  ‘I was unaware at the time that the experiment was going ahead, but I read the results afterwards,’ he went on. ‘The professor administered a dose of cyanide to Bridget and Killop that should have killed them in seconds. She had a hypothesis that the Kellach constitution would be able to expel it before death occurred, and she was proved right.’

  Shella stared at him.

  ‘You experimented on them? Like animals?’

  ‘We did. We believed at the time that the Kellach were inferior beings. Some argued that they were barely sentient, and unfit for anything other than manual labour.’

  Bridget laughed. ‘Fucking charming, eh?’

  ‘You seem surprisingly okay about it,’ Shella said.

  ‘There’s no point dwelling on it now,’ Bridget shrugged. ‘Past is past, and anyway, Laodoc was quick to realise the error of his ways.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘In fact, my sympathy for them led to my downfall at the time. We did some good work, once they’d been moved to better accommodation and the physical experiments ceased. We wrote volumes of research on Kellach culture and history.’

  ‘I have a small confession to make about that,’ Bridget said, stifling a laugh.

  He frowned.

  ‘We might have made a lot of that up,’ she said.

  Shella sniggered.

  Laodoc said nothing.

  ‘It was me and Kallie, mostly,’ Bridget said. ‘We had a right laugh inventing stuff for your book.’

  Laodoc’s tongue flickered as the two women chuckled.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘There were things we didn’t want you to know about,’ she said, ‘in case the Rahain used it against us. We were your captives, and you were going on about getting your book published. We didn’t want all your folk knowing our secrets.’

  ‘What secrets?’ said Shella.

  ‘Oh, about fire mages and the existence of sparkers. And stuff about being twins, and what that meant to us.’

  ‘Twins?’ said Agang.

  ‘Aye,’ she said, her smile fading. ‘It seemed so important to us back then, but it means nothing any more. It’s all gone.’

  ‘What does it mean, though?’

  Bridget turned to him. ‘All Kellach Brigdomin are twins, well most of us. There are the odd few singles about, like Dyam.’

  ‘So you have a twin?’ Agang said.

  ‘No,’ Bridget said, ‘I’m different again. I was part of triplets. I had two sisters, who were identical. We were all born on the same day, but.’

  ‘Had?’

  Bridget nodded. ‘Both died in the war.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Shella.

  Bridget shrugged. ‘Seems a long time ago now. And most of the other Kellach survivors, the same thing happened to them. I doubt that many twins are still together, except maybe in the deepest glens of the Domm Highlands.’

  ‘It’ll return,’ Laodoc said, ‘once new generations are born.’

  ‘Aye,’ she said, ‘as long as the Emperor never goes down to Domm, and the folk there are safe.’

  Agang frowned. ‘Would I be right in saying that Killop and Keira are twins?’

  ‘Aye,’ Bridget said, ‘and ye could see it, whenever they worked together, like two halves of the same person, even though they’re completely different.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ laughed Shella.

  ‘I know,’ Bridget said, ‘but the fact that they’re both mages only adds to it. A thrower and a sparker together, the two sides of Pyre’s gift. That’s what we believed anyway.’

  ‘A sparker?’ said Agang.

  ‘Aye,’ Bridget said, ‘someone who can generate fire from nothing. Keira can throw fire that’s already there, but she can’t make it. Only a sparker can do that.’

  ‘Did you know this?’ said Agang to Laodoc. ‘This is all new to me.’

  ‘Killop never told me anything himself,’ he said, ‘but I had a fair inkling, from listening to people talk in Slateford.’

  ‘I knew,’ said Shella. ‘Daphne told me about Killop, and Bedig told me about twins.’

  Laodoc glanced at Bridget, but the Brig woman didn’t react.

  ‘So the Kellach mage powers are split between twins?’ Agang said. ‘Do you think the Emperor possesses both?’

  ‘You were the one who was there,’ said Bridget, ‘you saw him.’ She turned to Shella. ‘You did too.’

  ‘I saw him throw fire,’ said Agang. ‘He destroyed the Sanang regiments that had breached the city walls by hurling balls of fire at them.’

  ‘The Kellach mage he killed in the ritual,’ said Shella, ‘she was a thrower. That’s what she told me anyway, while we were all in a cell together.’ She shook her head. ‘She was crazy. She actually volunteered, can you believe that? She gave herself up to the Emperor, even though the Kellach in the city were trying to hide her from the One True Path.’

  Bridget gazed out at the vast land to their right, the foothills undulating in the morning sunshine.

  ‘Do you remember her name?’

  ‘Lilyann,’ said Shella. ‘Young. In her teens, I would guess.’

  Dean let out a cry, and wept, putting his head in his hands. Dyam strode over, reaching her arm over his shoulder.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Bridget. ‘Lilyann.’

  ‘You knew her?’ said Shella.

  ‘Aye.’

  Dyam looked up. ‘She was the fire mage that fought under Killop at the battle for the gates of the Rahain Capital. She practically won the war for the alliance.’

  Bridget’s e
yes hardened. ‘Then the religious fanatics from the Holdings poisoned her mind.’ She glanced at Dean. ‘They tried to get to him too.’

  Shella pulled on the reins, bringing the wagon to a halt, as Dean remained standing, tears flooding down his cheeks.

  She glanced at Bridget. ‘Were they…?’

  Bridget shook her head. ‘Just friends. We found them in a camp for slave children in the Rahain highlands, where the authorities had forgotten all about them. That prison was all they’d known for years.’

  Laodoc clenched his fist. ‘How I wish I could undo the evil that my nation brought to yours, my Kellach Brigdomin friends. How I wish I could erase the past few years and start again.’ He paused, tears coming to his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Bridget leaned forward and embraced him as he began to weep.

  ‘It’s alright, ya auld lizard,’ she said, patting him on the back.

  ‘It’s not though, is it?’ said Dyam, her pale blonde hair blowing in the breeze. ‘Our folk might survive, if we defeat the Emperor, but we’ll never be the same.’

  ‘None of us will,’ said Shella. ‘Let’s face it, even if the Emperor hadn’t gained all his new powers, we were probably going to kill each other anyway.’

  ‘I wonder what he’s been doing?’ said Agang. ‘It’s been nearly a year since I fled the imperial capital with Keira. We know he attacked Rainsby, but what else has he done in our absence?’

  ‘Gathering more mages, I’d guess,’ Shella said. ‘That’s what Kalayne said he’d be doing. So he could try again.’

  ‘Then he could be anywhere,’ Bridget said. ‘Pyre’s arsecrack, we’re unprepared.’

  Laodoc frowned. ‘Maybe we should go to the imperial city first,’ he said, ‘and learn what’s been going on in the empire before we do anything else.’

  ‘We have to find Daphne Holdfast’s daughter,’ Agang said. ‘The most obvious place to start looking is in the Holdings. Besides, we’re bound to hear word on the road about what’s been going on, once we get down to the Plateau at any rate.’

  ‘Traveller’s gossip?’ Laodoc said. ‘Damn it, how I wish we had a vision mage with us.’ He glanced around, his frown turning into a crooked smile. ‘It’s the only one we’re missing. We’re one mage short of a ritual.’

  Shella shook her head at him. ‘I keep forgetting that you’re one too.’

  ‘A poorer specimen you’d be hard put to find,’ he said. ‘I can make sand quiver, well I could, it’s been forty years since I tried that particular party trick.’

  Dyam ruffled Dean’s hair, and glanced up to Shella. She pulled on the reins, and the wagon moved off again. They continued along the path as it descended the side of the hills. After a mile, the view of the Plateau was lost as they entered a narrow gorge.

  It grew dark in the shadows of the steep cliffs, and the path became wet and slippery from water running down the rocks. Ahead, Laodoc noticed the opening of a cave.

  ‘Are we going through there?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Shella. ‘This is the reason I couldn’t find the pass when I came south from the Plateau. The cave goes through a spur of the mountain, and emerges under a waterfall. You could walk right up to it from the other side, and never know there was a tunnel there.’

  She took a lamp from under the driver’s bench and lit it as they entered the cave. The walls were smooth, as if the tunnel had been formed by flowing water many years before. The way was narrow, and the others on foot had to go ahead of the wagon. Shella attached the lamp to a short post by her side, and they travelled on, the only sound coming from the clipping of the stones under the gaiens’ clawed feet. The tunnel descended at a gradual pace, and after twenty minutes, they began to hear the roar of water. Shella extinguished the lamp as a circle of shimmering grey appeared.

  ‘The waterfall,’ she said. ‘Through there’s the Plateau.’

  Agang looked up at them. ‘We should scout the way first.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Lola.

  ‘Alright,’ said Bridget. ‘We’ll wait for ye.’

  The Lach woman took her longbow from the wagon, and pulled it free from its covering. She picked up a quiver of arrows, nodded to Bridget, and set off for the waterfall without a word. She squeezed to the left of the tunnel, where the falling torrent was lighter, and disappeared through the curtain of water.

  ‘Four mages sat here,’ said Shella, ‘and we send someone without powers.’

  ‘Lola’s a good scout,’ Bridget said. ‘It’s her job, it’s why we brought her.’

  ‘I hope you’re paying her well.’

  Bridget laughed. She stopped, as she noticed the look on Dean’s face.

  ‘Sorry about Lilyann,’ she said. She climbed down from the wagon. ‘Here. It’s your turn anyway.’

  Dean clambered up, and huddled down among the crates and sacks of supplies, as Bridget stretched her limbs.

  ‘So are there farms and shit in this part of the Plateau?’ she said.

  ‘I passed a couple,’ said Shella, ‘though I gave them a wide berth.’

  ‘Our half of the Plateau has been sparsely populated since the old wars with the Holdings ended,’ Laodoc said. ‘The opening of the Great Tunnel through the Grey Mountains was meant to herald a new wave of settlement. Instead, it merely allowed the alliance army to reach Rahain quicker.’

  ‘It’s the same in the Holdings half,’ Agang said. ‘My information said that there would be farms and towns, but it was mostly deserted.’

  ‘Such a fucking waste,’ Shella said. ‘It’s all good land. If we’d been allowed to settle there, then the Migration would have succeeded. The Holdings and the Rahain were just too greedy though. Neither side wanted us anywhere near them.’

  Bridget nodded, then glanced up at Laodoc. ‘I’m starting to feel a bit bad about inventing all that stuff for yer book.’

  ‘I understand why you did it,’ he sighed. ‘I can see why you wouldn’t want your secrets read out in every school and academy in Rahain, but I admit it does hurt a little. Simiona spent many days working on it, and I know how much it meant to her.’

  ‘When this is all over,’ she said. ‘We’ll get a few bottles of whisky, sit down together and do it properly. For Simiona. We’ll dedicate it to her memory.’

  ‘I would like that.’

  Dyam snorted. ‘If ye want it done properly, then don’t listen to anything she tells ye. I taught Kellach history and culture in Slateford’s schoolhouse. I’ll help.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘She’ll just tell ye about how great she thinks the Domm are,’ Bridget said. ‘Those conceited arseholes are always forgetting about the rest of us.’

  ‘Aye?’ smirked Dyam. ‘And what is there to know about Brig except that they reek of sheep shit and their ale’s crap?’

  Laodoc smiled. ‘I’ll need to ask Lola about the Lach, then. And later, someone with the Kell point of view.’

  ‘Ye’ll have Killop for that,’ Bridget said, ‘when we finally meet up with him. Though watch out, the Kell are up their own arses almost as much as the Domm.’ She shook her head. ‘They think they’re fucking special. Keira’s a prime example, and Kylon wasn’t far behind.’

  Shella raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re all just barbarian giants who live in caves and eat dung as far as I’m concerned. Kylon was alright, though. I even fancied him a tiny bit.’

  ‘That moody bastard?’ laughed Bridget.

  ‘I did say a tiny bit, I wasn’t infatuated or anything. But unlike the rest of you at least he had some dress sense. And washed occasionally. And, you know, brushed his hair more than once a third.’

  Bridget and Dyam frowned at her.

  ‘Yer a right cheeky wee cow,’ Dyam said, ‘for a shortarse.’

  ‘She’s just jealous,’ Bridget said. ‘She wishes she was Kellach.’

  ‘Yeah right,’ Shella sneered. ‘Great lumbering oafs that stink of alcohol whose every second word is fuck?’

  ‘Better than maggot-e
ating swamp frogs,’ Bridget said. ‘Can yer tongue catch flies?’

  ‘Got a problem with flies, have you? Maybe you should take a bath.’

  ‘Bloody women,’ muttered Agang. ‘Always bickering.’

  ‘Shut it, ya monkey-arsed reject,’ said Bridget.

  ‘Yeah,’ smirked Shella, ‘when we want your opinion we’ll ask for it, ape-boy.’

  ‘I wouldn’t interfere,’ said Laodoc, glancing at Agang as he seethed. ‘I seem to recall that the Kellach Brigdomin use insults as a form of endearment. The worse the epithet, the more they like you, or so I believe.’

  ‘Yer arse,’ said Dyam.

  ‘As for Shella,’ Laodoc went on, ‘she derives a curious pleasure from seeing how far she can push people. If you rise to her bait, then she’ll come back again and again for more.’

  ‘You’re a wise old lizard sometimes.’ Shella said, ‘though mostly, like now, you’re just a pain in the ass.’

  A wry smile settled on his lips as Shella, Bridget and Dyam laughed.

  ‘I hope Lola’s back soon,’ muttered Agang.

  Two hours later, the bottom-left corner of the waterfall shimmered and Lola walked through, her clothes and hair drenched.

  ‘How’d it go?’ asked Bridget.

  ‘Not great.’

  She reached into a sack on the back of the wagon, and took out a wrapped chunk of ryebread. She tore off a piece and shoved it in her mouth.

  ‘Well?’ said Agang.

  She turned to him.

  ‘They’re waiting for us.’

  ‘Who?’ said Laodoc.

  ‘Imperials. About a company or so of Holdings troopers. They’ve been up here, scouting round the waterfall, but they didn’t see the tunnel. I saw tracks outside and followed them down the hill. They’re camped about three miles from here.’

  ‘Can we go round them?’ said Bridget.

  ‘Not if we want to keep the wagon,’ Lola said, chewing the bread. ‘We could climb, and take a detour to the west, but there’s no way the gaien will be going up those slopes.’

  ‘So we lose the wagon and walk to the Holdings,’ said Agang, ‘or we fight.’

  ‘We can’t fight a whole company of troopers,’ said Laodoc.