Raising Fire

by James Bennett

  The First-Born had dwindled and died, victims of some unrecorded cataclysm. Now, only spectres remained, diminished, weak, but capable of rising still, called from the sleep beyond sleep, as he had learnt to his horror last year. That the vanished race held power untold, magic far surpassing science, Ben could not dispute. Gods? The tales depended on who told them. Every parent is a god to a child. To see a trace of the Old Lands in this depthless place chilled him to the bone.

  All the same, he came to a halt, turning to Jia.

  “It isn’t much. We’ll have to wait down here until we figure out our next move.”

  Or you satisfy my questions.

  “This is your lair?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, it isn’t—”

  She was looking at him in that funny way again.

  “You are lying, Mr. Garston,” she told him flatly. Unable to hold her penetrating gaze, he looked away into the shadows, and she let out a sigh, too tired to judge him. “I … sense that your lair is nearby, though. Perhaps down that corridor, yes? You know, I could easily find my way back here, if I had to.”

  “I knew this was a bad idea.”

  “Then stop wasting time,” she said. “It’s too late to turn back now.”

  Shoulders slumped, he shook his head and led her down the corridor in question. Jia must have thought he was leading her into the core of the earth. For all that, he only heard her complain once during the journey, and that was when he came to the end of yet another corridor. Taking in the blank wall ahead, a dead end in the gloom, she let out a groan. Ben rewarded her with a frown and laid his palm flat against the wall, his fingers spread, pressing into weathered grooves. Jia sighed in relief as a section of the wall slid to one side. A warm amber light shone through the gap.

  Gold. It was gold. Heaps upon heaps of gold. A collection of coins dating from the Saxon era and on through all the history of the world, the mixed mounds of currencies peppered with goblets, statues and crowns.

  Jia traipsed behind Ben through the valleys of treasure, her eyes wide, her feet crunching over jewels, kicking the occasional urn from her path. An enchanted light illuminated the cavern, shimmering from the treasure itself, gathered over centuries into a bed.

  Ben coughed and hurried his pace, feeling exposed by this proof of his nature, the greed and possessiveness of dragons. Jia, for her part, made no comment, awe rendering her dumb. For that, he was grateful. No one but him had seen this place in a hundred years. Any criticism and he might change his mind, shove her back into the tunnels under the city. Then coil jealously around his riches in the half-light.

  His reason for taking this route was that it had been the only one available. Besides, he couldn’t bring himself to leave her behind, abandoning her to her fate—to their fate—the world falling to the Ghost Emperor. If the Guild couldn’t help them, who did that leave? Somehow he had to find Von Hart and, if necessary, wrest his fragment of the harp from his clutches. Somehow he’d make him pay for his treachery, his rousing of the dragon and destruction …

  You don’t know that. There’s more to this than meets the eye.

  Whatever was going on here, Jia was the key. Instinct told him as much. In light of this, he was willing to make certain sacrifices, like inviting the sin-you into his lair. After all, she had saved his life.

  And you don’t want to let her out of your sight …

  Soon enough, Ben reached the edge of the hoard, passing half-finished Michelangelo sculptures, a ten-foot-high Black Sun swastika and a row of open chests filled with bullion. The stacked gold bars were the cause of his argument with Delvin Blain. The dwarf had informed him that there was only so much gold one could fence on the black market; it attracted the wrong kind of attention. Dealing with smugglers was far from wise, particularly for a creature like Ben, whose privacy remained of the utmost importance.

  This was excellent advice, Ben had agreed. The Blain Trust had every reason for caution. In the end, the need for discretion had not dampened his wish to donate a portion of his wealth to charities in Somalia and across North Africa. He had decided to take a calculated risk. His hands might be tied when it came to playing the superhero, but he could play the philanthropist, even if he knew that the hoard around him would never be enough …

  Of course, he said nothing of this to Jia. He led her up the stairs and out of the chamber, up a thousand spiral steps to another brick wall, which again he pressed in a certain fashion, the barrier sliding back.

  He stepped through the gap into the cellar of number 9 Barrow Hill Road.

  He was home.

  In the months of his absence, not much had changed. While Jia took a shower, Ben had a look around, relieved to find that the house had sat undisturbed. The bedrooms were pristine and empty. The large framed Blake print, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, still hung over the mantelpiece in the living room. Jack, sweet Jack, was waiting in the fridge. Dust covered everything as usual, a shroud for the sham of an ordinary life, and he had to wipe the TV with his sleeve to see the images on the screen.

  Putting his feet up, the soles calloused and black, he swigged from a freshly opened bottle and watched the evening news.

  The Middle East imploding. The icecaps melting. Refugees fleeing, starving, drowning. Oil spills and earthquakes. Bigots grinning on platforms. The usual circus of human existence, parading with all due pomp and ceremony towards the cliff edge of civilisation.

  Ben sighed. Why did he care for them so much, the humans? Was it their fleeting natures that spoke to him, moved him to protect them? He could no longer kid himself that the sentiment was mutual, and his hope—already stretched—was wearing thin. As if a blindfold had been torn from his eyes, he was staring the times directly in the face. Against all his wishes, humans, like Remnants, had become the cause of their own downfall.

  Despair was nibbling at the edges of his duty, his pact, filling him with doubt. With no official body to guide him (save the one that wanted his head on a plate), where did that leave him? He couldn’t turn to the envoy for help and there was no lover to soothe him, make the fight seem worthwhile.

  He had lost his way. The Sola Ignis was alone, as ever, but the fire was guttering, about to go out. The Fay had abandoned the Remnants long ago. The humans looked to dangerous science or silent gods. The Remnants were dropping like flies.

  And in the end, what’s in it for you?

  At another time, guilt would have followed on the heels of this thought. He’d have chastised himself for selfishness and gone about drinking himself downstream, away from the problem. But—

  An electrical bolt, a detonation of nerves, speared his body, his spine arching against the couch. Veins stood out on his neck, his teeth clenching. Blood bubbled from his trapped tongue, his eyes rolling up in his head as the spasm took hold. The bottle of Jack fell from his hand, thudding on the floorboards and chugging whiskey. Crimson eddied under his skin, scales blooming and retreating, his instincts thrown into confusion, a transformation beyond his control. As he gasped for breath, the room around him fell away, the walls slipping into endless black. The couch under him vanished, the curtain of the real ripped back to reveal the nether, a vision into nothingness. Wires, thin and hot, shot through his physique, a drawstring pulling in tight.

  Before him, a giant emerged from the darkness, the dome of its head rising from the deep, a pale sun blazing in the dark.

  Shuddering, drooling, Ben watched the Ghost Emperor draw closer, taking up the whole of his vision, a viscid, vaporous wall. The behemoth, a colossus of need, brimmed with accumulated power, his tendrils and horns a flickering crown. Rigid on the couch, Ben recognised the Lurkers, a host of phantoms swimming through the gulf to join their king, swarming into a deathly whole. Behind the Emperor’s visor of bone, the light at his core whirled and flashed, too fierce to look at directly, a radiant maw. Silently he levelled his eyes on Ben, each one burning with blind hunger. His tongue slithered back and forth, the forked appendag
e wriggling, extending across the non-space to lick at Ben’s aura, taste his soul.

  Drawn by the souring of magic—Ben had seen the decaying circle for himself—the Ghost Emperor hauled his bulk across the nether to bear against the skein of reality. Frost crackled across Ben’s skin, encasing his heat, his eyes drinking in the cosmic horror. His flesh urged to take flight from his bones, drift in flakes towards those weaving tentacles, the squid-like limbs eager to suck up the meat of Creation …

  He heard an echo, a scream, calling in the dark.

  Ben.

  “Ben!”

  His eyes fluttered open. Jia was leaning over him, shaking him awake. Groaning, he tried to sit up, blood crusting his nostrils and lips. He threw out his arms like a drowning man and Jia retreated, giving him room to catch his breath. Swallowing bile, he wiped mucus and sweat from his face, then spat on the floor between his feet.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’ve been better.” He grimaced and scrambled for the Jack, lifting the bottle to his lips and draining the last inch of liquor. He toasted her with the empty. “I’ve been worse.”

  Jia didn’t look convinced. She had unpicked her braid, he noticed, her hair straggling damply around her shoulders. In her efforts to rouse him, her bathrobe had come loose, revealing the tops of her breasts, pert orbs of skin, porcelain-smooth. An impression of skin, he reminded himself, not that it did him any good. Seeing his lingering gaze, Jia blushed and pulled the robe around her, a swathe of green hair shimmering over her chest, her suit re-forming, the show over.

  She straightened, tightening her belt.

  “You saw him again, didn’t you?”

  He didn’t have to ask her who she meant.

  “Looks like your Emperor is paying house calls.” Ben bumped his fist against his head. “Maybe I should charge rent on my skull.”

  Jia snorted. “What would the Ghost Emperor want with you?”

  “That thing sniffed me out for a reason.” Twice now. “I’d like to know why.”

  “Who can say? I see nothing special about you.”

  “You flatter me.”

  “I merely speak the truth. The Ghost Emperor craves the world entire, not some washed-up dragon.” He started to protest, but she silenced him with a wave of her hand. “The failing magic draws this evil to the earth like a wolf to unguarded sheep. Why would he turn his eyes in your direction? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  Ben climbed unsteadily to his feet.

  “Oh no you don’t. Don’t turn this around,” he said. “Let’s talk about you for a minute, shall we? What was all that about at Paladin’s Court? You followed me from China. You wanted to find the Guild. To warn them, you said. But you were more than happy to talk to the Chapter, even after everything I told you. Or did you just want to get me out in the open?”

  “You’re paranoid. I—”

  “What do you really want, Miss Jing? You know, I didn’t come down in the last rain shower.”

  “I told you. I’m on an urgent mission to—”

  “Save it. We both know you used me as bait.”

  For once, Jia was unable to hold his gaze. She scowled at the TV, at the Blake print on the wall. Anywhere but at him.

  “I have to warn them,” she said, soft but firm. “You don’t know what the Emperor will do.”

  “And you don’t know the Whispering Chapter. What the hell were you expecting? A twenty-one-gun salute?” He crossed his arms, hissing through his teeth. “These are dangerous times. You can’t trust anyone. The Chapter wants my balls for breakfast and you were ready to serve them up on a plate.”

  “My mission is of greater importance than what dangles between your legs.”

  “Not to me, honey. And your mission sounds pretty bogus, to be fair.” He was moving forward, watching her retreat in his shadow. “Who are you working for? Von Hart? Everyone and their cat is after the harp. Why should you be any different?”

  “You’re a suspicious creature,” she said. “A cynical drunk in love with his scars. So what if I secure a fragment of the harp? It would help me to find Von Hart. And maybe stop the Chapter from taking your head!”

  “So there we have it,” he said, raising his arms. “Every Remnant knows the location of Paladin’s Court. You turned up on the doorstep just like that.” He clicked his fingers under her nose. “Convenient. But the Invisible Church is just that—invisible. You’re not the only one who can see through people, Jia. And you were willing to risk my life to get what you want.”

  “Yes!” she shouted up at him, her fists held rigid at her sides. “Your life. My life. What are they worth? The Ghost Emperor will devour all.”

  “I get it.” Her outburst had taken him aback and he held up his hands, framing his complaint. “Still, you should’ve told me. You should’ve asked.”

  Why didn’t he just kick her out of his house? What was holding him back? Either way, she knew where he lived now. If she wanted to bring the Chapter down on his head, it was too late to stop her. Better to talk her out of it. To try, at least.

  Disgusted with him, Jia swore and turned her back, glaring out of the window.

  “If we can save this world, it’s a small price to pay,” she told him. “Some have already paid it.”

  And here was the source of her anger, an inkling of emotion under her veneer.

  Ben looked at the ceiling, giving his blood time to cool.

  After a moment, he said, “At the Court. You said … that you lost something.”

  “It is nothing.”

  “Doesn’t sound like nothing to me.”

  “I’m alone,” she said, covering her face. “The gods have cursed me with a cruel fate. I have no choice. That is all you need to know.”

  Ben reached out and touched her shoulder, his fingers light. At first, she stiffened, but then she relaxed, turning to face him.

  “You’re not alone,” he told her. What was he even saying? “I brought you here, didn’t I?”

  “You repaid me in kind.”

  “Shut up. We all have our scars, Jia.”

  The pull of her sorrow was strong. It surprised him to find that their lips were inches apart, her chin tipping towards him, her eyes filling his, a mystery waiting to unfold.

  “We take our comfort where we can,” he breathed.

  Jia blinked, startled. Her palm came up, a block of ice on his chest.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I …” Ben coughed, drawing himself upright. “I thought …”

  Her forehead creased, but she appeared more puzzled than vexed.

  “You love another,” she said. Another cold statement of fact. No. A judgement. Definitely a judgement.

  He didn’t have much to say to this. There was no point in lying. He coughed to cover his embarrassment—Christ, he needed a drink—and eddied back across the floor, willing the space between them to crash in like waves, drowning the awkward moment.

  But Jia had more to say.

  “In my land, we have a story.” Her face was a mask, unreadable. “It is one of the chuanqi, the strange tales. Sketches, you might call them. Interludes in a broader tale. This tale belongs to Pu Songling, a lowly country teacher, who was no less wise and true.”

  With that, she went on. “There was a merchant of Qingzhou who often travelled away on business, leaving his wife and his dog at home. His wife, a twisted creature, encouraged the dog to have relations with her, and the dog, in his fashion, grew accustomed to this. One day, the merchant returned home, but when he climbed into bed with his wife, his dog fell upon him and mauled him to death.” Ben stared at her. Her gaze was piercing, a thorn through his heart. “‘How many things are possible’, Songling wrote, ‘in the immense universe of heaven and earth. This woman was certainly not the only human to have coupled with a beast.’”

  For a minute, silence spun about between them, fraying and cold.

  Then Jia said, “You are a coward, Ben Garston. You cannot he
lp me. In the morning, I will leave this place and continue my mission alone.”

  She pushed past him, her head held high. Her tale was still sinking in, but he grasped its meaning well enough. She had rebuked him for his affair with Rose, perhaps his affairs with humans entirely. He’d wondered how deep her perceptions went. Or what Von Hart had told her. Now he knew. Either way, she had looked into his soul and found him wanting.

  He’d recovered his voice by the time she reached the living room door.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he said.

  She didn’t look back.

  “You love another,” she replied, and left him to his shame.

  He had a bad night’s sleep. Unformed dreams howled in his head, loss, guilt and consequence. In the morning, with sunlight spearing through the living room windows, he abandoned the couch and the litter of bottles and went upstairs.

  Jia lay on her back in the bedroom, her hands crossed over her stomach, as still as a corpse in an open casket. Sensing his presence in the doorway, her eyes blinked open and she sat up, raising an eyebrow at his freshly shaved face and trimmed hair. He’d stood with the scissors in front of the bathroom mirror, letting the curls drift to the floor like autumn leaves. As if he was making a sacrifice, which in a way, he was.

  “It’s dangerous out there,” he told her. “And perhaps you’re right. Perhaps that makes me a coward. But I can show you where to find a certain Vicomte. If anyone can, he’ll tell us where to find the knights of the Guild. Maybe even the Invisible Church. But first you have to tell me what you want with the harp.”

  After a moment, Jia nodded. A curt, respectful acceptance.

  She opened her mouth to speak and the front of the house exploded.

  FOURTEEN

  In a flurry of brick dust and splinters, Ben was at the top of the staircase, ignoring the barrage of cuts peppering his hands and face. Half crouching to leap down the steps, he caught himself instead, tottering on the landing. The stairs below were missing, blown to smithereens. Through the noise and the dust, he gawped down on his new open-plan hallway and living room, the Blake print taking flight from the wall, the TV and the sofa aflame. Even the fridge in the kitchen lay on its side, broken bottles of Jack pouring freely from its mangled door.