Darksong

by Isobelle Carmody

  At the time her reasoning had seemed sound, but now, making her way along the pale tiled walks with the dark sea spread out on one side, Glynn found herself hoping fervently that the Prime was right in her predictions; after all, she was dealing with a man who was supposed to be more than half insane, and how could anyone predict how such a man might react to anything?

  At last the walkway passed into a passage all set with gleaming green-blue stones both underfoot and overhead and Glynn knew that, around the next turn, she would find the entrance to the Holder’s apartment. She stopped to take several deep breaths, again telling herself that she was nothing more than a delivery girl, then she went on.

  The entrance proved to be a huge ornate mosaic archway in pale oyster colours which glowed with its own luminescence. The blood-red, gold-encrusted uniforms of four legionnaires contrasted so sharply with the moony pallor that Glynn supposed it must be deliberate. Behind the legionnaires standing stiffly at attention was not a door but an enormous wrought-metal gate several times higher than a man. The green-blue shade of the metal proclaimed it to be atar, also used by myrmidons to cap the javelins that were their traditional weapons. Beyond the gate, a long, high, pale hall ran away into the distance.

  ‘What is your business here, Servitor?’ asked one of the legionnaires, motioning for the other four to be at ease.

  ‘I am Glynn of Fomhika and servitor to my mistress.’ Fortunately the feinna had not yet wakened enough to be discomfited by her lie. ‘I bear a gift from her to the Lord Holder of Keltor.’

  ‘Give it to me then,’ the legionnaire commanded, and held out a gloved hand.

  Unable to believe it could be this simple, Glynn was about to hand the casket over when she remembered that she was supposed only to give it into the hands of one of Tarsin’s body servitors. She swallowed dryly and explained, as the legionnaire’s brows drew forbiddingly together.

  ‘Very well. Who is your mistress, that I may announce it?’

  Glynn made her voice cool and dispassionate. ‘The name of my mistress is within the chit she sends to the Holder. She bade me speak it not, for her gift … is of a personal nature.’ Glynn felt herself blush, which was ridiculous since she had nothing to blush for, but her feinna senses detected a sudden welter of lascivious speculations on the part of the legionnaire about what the casket might contain.

  ‘I am afraid that I cannot allow any package to pass through this door unless I know from whence and whom it comes …’ the legionnaire began. But he broke off at the sound of steps. An older man appeared in the corridor, walking towards them with measured haste. Clad in a yellow toga and sandals with a small decorative cape stiffened with gold about his shoulders, he was almost certainly one of Tarsin’s body servitors. The legionnaires opened the gates for him and the man nodded slightly then addressed Glynn directly.

  ‘You bear a gift for my master, Servitor?’

  Unable to see how the man could know this, Glynn nodded gormlessly, then she collected her wits and said, ‘That is … my mistress wishes to gift the Holder but she said that I might give her offering only into the hands of one of the Holder’s most trusted body servitors. May I give it to you?’

  ‘You may not,’ the servitor said serenely.

  Glynn froze in the act of holding out the box and the tiny key phial. ‘Does your master refuse the gift, then?’

  ‘First, I am not a body servitor and second, the Holder desires that you deliver this gift to him with your own hands. If there is any treachery involved, you will be dealt with immediately.’

  ‘I assure you my mistress wishes only …’ Glynn stammered, horrified at this unexpected turn of events. Belatedly she realised that the Holder obviously had some mechanical means of watching his own front door. She had heard nothing of any such devices but that did not mean they did not exist.

  ‘Come,’ the servitor said inexorably, and turned on his heel as if she had not spoken.

  Glynn had no choice but to follow him. The Prime had given her no instructions for this eventuality and she had no idea at all how one was even supposed to greet or speak with the ruler of an entire planet. What if she said the wrong thing and was thrown into the infamous citadel cells for some misspoken bit of palace protocol. Yet she could not have refused to obey Tarsin’s command.

  Oh, please don’t let something go wrong when I might really be on the eve of a chance to escape, she prayed, thinking longingly of the Draaka’s intention to send her to the citadel the next day.

  The servitor stopped and Glynn stopped too, belatedly aware that she had been too agitated to pay proper attention to the route they had taken. Not that she was likely to be making her way alone along it. They now stood before a tall metal door with forbidding-looking inscriptions. The door swung wide revealing a room decorated overwhelmingly in black, though the servitor had not knocked. The darkness of the windowless, candlelit room they now entered and the reddish colour of its walls and furnishings reminded Glynn so strongly of the Draaka’s audience chamber that they produced a powerful sensation of deja vu. The Draaka’s confident claim that Tarsin was in thrall to the Chaos spirit suddenly seemed very likely. Glynn clamped down the feinna part of herself, determined not to risk what had happened when she had tried to scry out the Draaka.

  In the centre of the room, close to the farthest wall, was a throne, a monstrous gilded thing glaring with jewels and occupied by a figure in polished gold armour. It took Glynn a moment to realise that the figure had no head or feet, and was in fact nothing but a suit of armour. This seemed so bizarre that Glynn stopped, wondering what was going on.

  ‘Wait here,’ the servitor behind her said imperturbably, and left. The door shut with a soft but audible whirring that reminded her of the sound of a clockwork toy running through its movements, and then all she could hear was her own over-loud breathing in what seemed to be an empty room. As the minutes ticked by, she began to wonder if she was supposed to do or say something to make the Holder show himself, but as she had no idea what that might be, it seemed wiser to go on being silent rather than risk saying the wrong thing.

  In the end, she unwillingly allowed a trickle of her feinna senses and, at once, she realised that she was not alone. There were at least three other people in the room, two of them armed with metal and all emanating the faint tang of acrid sweat that came with surges of adrenaline. Glynn allowed her mind to open a crack further and found that the other occupants of the room were predominantly watchful. She relaxed fractionally, realising that this must be some sort of test to try to determine whether or not she would be a threat to the Holder. Reassured, she began to gape about, as she supposed a servitor in her circumstances might do and, sure enough, she felt the watchers relax.

  Moments later, the metal door opened behind her and she turned to see the white-clad servitor beckoning to her. Again he set off down the passage, saying over his shoulder, ‘The Holder will see you now.’

  In a few moments they came to another of the open-sided passages, but this time the openings were on the left, and although the view was still predominantly of the ocean, quite a lot of the citadel and part of the garden level lay just visible below in the molasses light of late dusk. The passage soon flowed into a long room whose sole furnishing seemed to be an enormous white aviary built around a tree and filled with chittering flyts. Up the far end of the room, she could see an archway and people moving beyond it. Again the servitor bade her wait, and hurried away, leaving Glynn to turn back to gaze out of the enormous windows. She was just in time to see Kalinda slide from sight and, all at once, Aden could be seen, glowing pale and green and low in the sky. A servitor with several lanterns hurried past Glynn muttering to himself and a moment later a boy came past carrying empty drink mugs and what looked to be the remains of a meal on a tray.

  One of the flyts began to trill a long call and Glynn wondered how it was possible for her to enjoy this sound when she could not enjoy the music made by her own kind. It did not seem possible tha
t tone deafness could be so selective. Glynn adjusted the casket – her arms were beginning to ache from the weight of it – and wondered if she might put it down for a bit. That was when she noticed that there was a small alcove in the side of the hall opposite the aviary. Here, a woman in a sether-blue gown lay full length along a chaise longue reading a scroll. A small boy stood motionless by her head, the exact twin to the lad who had passed with the tray.

  As if she felt Glynn’s regard, the woman looked up and, even from that distance, Glynn saw the blue eyes slit. She made an impatient gesture to the boy, who, a moment later, came hurrying over to Glynn. ‘My mistress wishes to know who you are and what your business is with her son.’ The words, though stated in a high-pitched child’s voice, were adult and had an adult tone that made it clear that the boy had been trained to mimic inflection as well as to remember words exactly.

  ‘Tell your mistress that I am … bound not to disclose my name or the name of my mistress to any but the Lord Holder himself,’ Glynn said, being careful to make her tone humble.

  The boy scurried back to the woman and the blue eyes flared with anger over his tow-coloured head as he conveyed her words. She sat up and beckoned imperiously to Glynn, who obeyed. Up close, her dress was little more than heavily embroidered strips of cloth suspended from a jewelled collar, and alternating with strings of what looked like bluish pearls.

  It could only be the infamous Coralyn of Iridom, and yet, as she entered the alcove, she looked too young to be the mother of a grown man. Yet the eyes were the exact shade of Kalide’s and it seemed to Glynn that the same malice animated them.

  Her feinna instincts began to clamour the moment the woman’s eyes met hers, and Glynn had no more doubt.

  ‘What is your name and who do you serve?’ Coralyn demanded.

  ‘I am forbidden to say who I serve,’ Glynn stammered.

  The eyes slitted again and the woman rose to her full height, which was at least a head taller than Glynn. The dress shifted and, finding herself eye to eye with a formidable naked breast for a moment, Glynn felt herself beginning to blush furiously, on top of all else.

  But Coralyn’s mind was not on seduction. ‘Name your mistress at once or I will summon a legionnaire and have you whipped senseless for your insolence. Do you not know who I am?’

  ‘Have you now taken it upon yourself to interview my visitors, Mother?’ a voice asked coldly.

  The older woman’s expression became guarded but she held Glynn’s gaze for a baleful moment more before turning to face her son, sweeping into a lovely curtsey that exposed most of her body. Tarsin, for it must be he, merely observed this coldly, making no effort to respond with any sort of salute. Glynn did not dare to look at him for more than a moment before falling to her knees, but one glance had shown her a portly man, clad in grubby, stained gold cloth, his hair looking like nothing so much as an ill-made birds’ nest constructed several seasons past. His face she could not have described save for the blue glitter in eyes that did not look the least bit dull-witted to her.

  ‘Since you have seen fit to let your poor mother languish all day waiting to see her own son, I thought I might as well be of some use,’ Coralyn said in a smooth light voice. ‘This servitor refuses to give the name of her mistress, and I thought to –’

  ‘– interfere again,’ Tarsin concluded with a sneer. ‘Kindly remember, that you are not mother to the Holder, but a troublesome subject who does not seem to remember her place.’

  ‘I was only worried about your safety, Tarsin,’ Coralyn objected in a silky voice. Glynn was disgusted to hear her project her sensuality into the words, as if she would seduce her own son.

  ‘You worry about me, Mother?’ he sneered openly at her. ‘Better to say that I worry you.’

  Realising that she was for the moment forgotten, Glynn turned her head slightly to get a better look at the Holder. Unfortunately he was turned side on to her, so she could not see his face properly. She could, however, see the man and woman behind him clad in brief gold togas looking like Mr and Mrs Universe. The brevity of their attire and the oiling of their skin might have been intended only to make the most of their striking physical perfection but for the balanced looseness of their stances, and their fluid stillness. Glynn guessed that they would be deadly opponents in a bout, and had no doubt that they were bodyguards as well as body servitors, despite being barefoot and weaponless.

  Belatedly, she noticed that the woman was watching her, while the man did not take his eyes from Coralyn. Glynn ducked her head quickly, but she was not frightened. Her feinna senses picked up only a calm readiness and a strong protective aura of affection and devotion. Besides, she doubted that she had behaved any differently from a real Keltan servitor forced to witness this battle of the titans.

  ‘What was it that you wanted?’ Tarsin snapped, cutting his mother’s words off. For a moment Glynn thought that the brusque question was aimed at her, but then she felt a surge of rage from the Iridomi chieftain.

  ‘Am I to speak here like a servitor, before all of these people, my son?’ she asked.

  ‘You will supplicate like any other Keltan, before your Holder,’ Tarsin bellowed.

  ‘Perhaps this is not the time,’ the chieftain said smoothly, and now Glynn detected her anger cooling to a chilly inexorable sense of purpose. ‘I can see that I find you busy and out of sorts, Tarsin. I will come to you tomorrow. Perhaps we can walk in the gardens and talk then.’

  Tarsin burst into rude wild laughter, and flapped his hand at her. Glynn pressed her forehead abjectly to the ground as the older woman swept by and did not move until her steps had faded.

  ‘Get up off the floor,’ Tarsin said impatiently but not unkindly. ‘Now, who is your mistress?’

  Taking a deep breath, Glynn said, ‘Lord Holder, I have been commanded to say to you that my mistress has great admiration and respect for you, though scurrilous gossip might suggest otherwise, and she wishes to demonstrate this with a rare gift of inestimable value.’

  ‘Her name!’ Tarsin snapped.

  ‘My mistress is the High Draaka of the Draaka Cult, Sire, and she has come to Ramidan with a delegation of senior draakira solely in order that she may correct any impression you have that she wishes you ill. This gift is a token of her goodwill.’ She held up the casket which she had somehow managed to hold the whole time she was on her knees, keeping her head down.

  There was a long silence, then Tarsin said mildly, ‘You are the sole servitor of that delegation, then. The servitor Glynn of Fomhika. You do not look as myrmidonish as my spies have suggested.’

  ‘It was feared that my appearance might displease you, Sire,’ Glynn said, ‘so the likeness was lessened.’

  ‘Your mistress imagined that I would care one way or the other about the appearance of a servitor?’ Tarsin asked coldly.

  ‘Lord, my mistress says that a truly great ruler notices even the smallest detail in his realm.’

  ‘Your mistress said that, did she?’ Tarsin echoed. ‘Come closer.’

  ‘My beloved Lord, not too close,’ the man behind him said quickly.

  Tarsin gave a jagged peel of laughter and said to Glynn, ‘You know if you do anything to cause me harm, my faithful body servitors will tear you to pieces with their hands?’

  This horrifying promise was made with a childlike earnestness that contrasted strangely with the unclean reek of the man. Glynn went nearer, trying not to breathe through her nose. He smelled bad enough that he might not have bathed in a year and, this close, she could see where his skin was grey with ingrained filth. She ought to have been repelled, but oddly all she could feel was a profound pity that any creature should come to this. Provoked by some obscure feinna impulse, Glynn made herself nod earnestly to Tarsin in answer to his question.

  His eyes widened and he nodded in the same way to her, as if they had exchanged a pact. From the corners of her eyes Glynn could see that the man and woman had shifted soundlessly to Tarsin’s flanks, so that
they would see her clearly. She had no intention of doing anything to harm the Holder, but she could feel sweat trickling down between her shoulder blades and wished with all her heart that the interview would end.

  ‘Your … you seem familiar to me,’ Tarsin said, frowning.

  Glynn licked her lips before she could stop herself. ‘It is perhaps only the likeness I bear to myrmidons.’

  ‘No, I have dreamed of you,’ Tarsin said, his eyes vague and dreamy. ‘I saw you fighting on a hilltop. You fell off a cliff.’ Glynn’s heart beat faster as he leaned closer and squinted at her as if he was trying to see her through mist or smeared glass. But at length he sighed and his face grew gradually vacant. Tarsin began to study one of his thumbnails with apparent fascination.

  A minute passed. Ten more.

  Suddenly Tarsin’s head jerked up, his expression both intimate and urgent. ‘I liked Bleyd, once, you know. That was a mistake. A Holder cannot like or love anybody. He can only be loved. Lanalor said that, do you know?’

  ‘Lord …’ the male servitor began, but Tarsin made a signal and he fell silent.

  ‘And why would he betray me?’ he went on. It seemed to Glynn that Tarsin really wanted an answer, though he gave her no time to respond. ‘Soon enough his brother would be in my place and he is young enough to wait. Bleyd was not impatient, but his father is.’ His face altered, becoming older, wizened almost, and crafty. ‘Soon, I shall ask Poverin. I will look into his eyes when he answers and I will know, and if he directed his son to this treachery, I will act.’