A War in Crimson Embers

by Alex Marshall

  “Ji-hyeon ordered it,” said the empress, climbing unsteadily to her feet on the top step of her stupid pavilion. “Ji-hyeon Bong ordered you to do it.”

  “You drove her back into the Othean Gate without her ever knowing it was me,” said Domingo, relishing the sensation of deflating the empress in front of her entire court. The previously unflappable figures in yellow were whispering to one another behind their masks now, even their vulture ruffling its feathers at the outrage, and Domingo spoke yet louder, making sure even the minor nobles in the back rows could hear him. “Nobody knew—not Ji-hyeon nor Choi here, nor anybody else in the Cobalt Company. And you, Your Elegance, you murdered Ji-hyeon Bong, and her family, and an entire Isle’s worth of your loyal subjects, all because you couldn’t even wait until you had the accused general in your hands so you could question her in front of your devil. If you had just bided your time and interrogated her here instead of mounting that spectacle out by the Gate, you would have known she was innocent. Her whole family was innocent. Everyone was innocent but me. Isn’t that right, you ugly bastard?”

  And because he didn’t expect to need it much longer, anyway, Domingo stuck out his sword hand and gave the unicorn’s scaled head a pet. The devil seemed just as surprised by this as the empress had been by Domingo’s announcement, but it quickly warmed to him. Its rumbling purr was almost as loud as the heavy footsteps charging up behind them, and he smiled to hear the clink of armor here in this throne room where the empress had thought herself invincible but now staggered from the heaviest blow of all—the comprehension that through hubris and folly one has been the death of those who trusted them most, those whom they swore to lead and protect.

  “I regret I didn’t tell you sooner,” he told the still-kneeling Choi as the armed guards swarmed them, and he gave the purring devil a final stroke. “But I can’t tell you I’m sorry I did it, not now that I’ve finally made a friend here in Othean!”

  Domingo Hjortt was still savoring this, his final victory, as they wheeled his chair to the end of the terra-cotta road and his involuntary reunion with the Gate that lay within the Temple of Pentacles.

  CHAPTER

  21

  It was the first time Ji-hyeon had properly slept since she had escaped into the Othean Gate. She’d begun to doubt her body even remembered how to sleep for more than a few fitful hours anymore, starting her awake at the slightest sound, but once it came upon her it was glorious. People of all Arms of the Star often referred to the First Dark as the wellspring of dreams, or the land where dreamers traveled in their sleep … but then most people had never spent much time on this side of a Gate, or they wouldn’t have believed such nonsense for a moment. One thing that had sawed its way into Ji-hyeon’s skull with grinding clarity was that this place was all too real. Everything alien and other about the landscape and its inhabitants was only in relation to her, the true outsider, and it was a world as coldly mundane as the one she had left.

  Thus, when she finally slipped from a deep slumber into gentle dreams that bore no resemblance to either the dusty grey wastes or the radiant impressions that crowded her devil-eye she felt such joy as she had forgotten existed. Afterward, when she awoke and found Duchess Din and Chevaleresse Sasamaso waiting by her bedside in the hollow ruins of a temple, asking if she had suffered nightmares, for she had wept in her sleep, she shook her head and told them they must have been tears of relief, for her dreams still had all the color the world had lost.

  “Not all of the realms beyond the Star are so dreary as this,” said Din, looking wistfully up at the eternally drab sky through a rent in the ancient stone roof.

  “As proven by your breakfast,” said Sasamaso, offering Ji-hyeon a beaten copper bowl of jewel-bright seeds tossed in something clear and viscous, a tin spoon stuck in the mess. “Eat as much of this as you can, General, it will help you recover.”

  The two older women sat on great blocks of pale marble beside Ji-hyeon, who slowly sat up on one elbow in her lumpy bedroll. She was lying on a cushion of pine boughs, the smells of crushed needles and oozing sap sharp in her hungry nostrils. She felt like old man Ruthless, laid out on his bier back at the Lark’s Tongue camp. Her heart quickened to be awake and without a weapon in hand’s reach, but then she saw her gear piled in a corner of the dusty chamber, the hilts of her swords protruding from the heap. Pressing her palm into the wool bedding and feeling the bend of the branches and the prick of the needles brought a lump to her throat; it had been so long since she had found a tree that was not blasted and brittle, since she had scented something green and healthy …

  “How long were you down there?” asked Chevaleresse Sasamaso, perhaps recognizing something familiar in her young general’s expression.

  “Two … two years,” said Ji-hyeon, and now she was crying, not for herself but for the two old women who were being so kind to her, two women who had been here decades longer than her but still treated her as though she were the one who had suffered. “Only two years.”

  “Only!” Count Hassan slipped past the thin blanket that hung over the doorway to the room, carrying a weathered brass tea service that clattered in his unsteady hands. “Small wonder you look so beastly.”

  “Hassan,” scolded Din.

  “It’s true,” he said, setting down the steaming tray on another of the room’s scattered blocks. “And I was putting it politely, wasn’t I?”

  “Yes, well, you don’t have to say it at all,” said Din, picking up the bowl Sasamaso had set on the floor when Ji-hyeon had broken down and reoffering it. “Just a few bites for now? I cannot imagine what you’ve been living off in such a place as this, but I doubt it was wholesome.”

  “I don’t have to imagine,” said Sasamaso. “I was the one who had to find out where the smell was coming from in her bags, remember. Our general has been eating rougher than she’s been sleeping, no small feat. I’m surprised it didn’t poison her, even with her devil.”

  “Fellwing,” said Ji-hyeon, sitting up straighter in her bed and almost knocking the bowl of food out of Din’s outstretched hand … but then she felt her owlbat stir under the blankets and come climbing up the clean shift they’d changed her into. The devil smacked her beak as she tasted the long-absent flavors of contentment and comfort in her mistress’s breast, however mean the morsels. Looking up at the haggard but happy faces of the three Cobalts she had given up for dead after the Battle of the Lark’s Tongue, Ji-hyeon asked, “But how did you all survive this hell without devils to help you? And for … for so long? How has it been so long?”

  “This land is one of many, General, and some of them flirt with the hospitable,” said Hassan as he poured steamy tea into little metal cups.

  “As I was in the midst of explaining before the Count barged in,” said Din. “We arrived somewhere very different, and only came to this eyesore for you.”

  “And as for how you appear before us so fresh-faced, that is not something we can explain, but it is hardly out of joint with our previous experiences,” said Sasamaso, taking the hot cup Hassan had offered Ji-hyeon and holding it for her general as she ate. The juicy seeds were so tart and the syrup so sweet she felt like her teeth might crumble, but her tongue was happier than it had ever been. “Since last we saw you, General, we have lived more than half our lives, and experienced such miracles and nightmares as makes your perpetual youth a minor matter.”

  “That may be oversimplifying things slightly,” said Din. “Meloy thinks it might mean—”

  “Whatever Shea thinks it means is beside the point for now,” said Hassan, blowing on his tea. “Isn’t the whole point to ease her into things as gently as possible, not overwhelm her with everything at once?”

  “I’ve spent two years fighting for my life against the worst things imaginable, and some things that I couldn’t imagine at all,” said Ji-hyeon through a mouthful of her heavenly breakfast. “You don’t have to worry about using the baby general gloves on me. It was bad enough back home, and I’d s
ay I’m well past the need for being coddled at this point. I don’t expect anything to make sense out here past the Gates, so on the slim chance something does we’re already coming out ahead.”

  The three looked around at each other but nobody seemed to know where to begin, so Ji-hyeon took charge, licking the spoon spotless and then trading her empty bowl for the tea in Sasamaso’s hand. “Just start from the beginning. The Battle of the Lark’s Tongue. What happened after that, how’d you end up here?”

  “We don’t have that kind of time right now,” said Hassan, and the others nodded in agreement. “It’s a very, very long story, and you know better than anyone this place is not safe. So until we have moved on to a less perilous country it would be best to focus on the immediate concerns you shall have.”

  “My only immediate concern is that this is real and not some fucked-up hell for sinners too stupid to realize they’re dead,” said Ji-hyeon, inhaling the steam from her tea. Once she might have thought it smelled weak and dirty, but now the faint grassy scent made her dizzy with excitement. “It’s not that, is it? We’re all still alive?”

  “We are all still alive,” confirmed Din. “Well, those of us who survived the transition, that is, and have lived out the many years since. Not everyone who came over during the event at the Lark’s Tongue is still with us.”

  “A few hundred of the original soldiers, at most,” said Sasamaso, stowing Ji-hyeon’s dirty bowl and spoon in a sling bag. “Some started families here, so there’s another generation, and now those children are having babes of their own … but there aren’t many of those who have come of age, not yet. Most of our ranks at this point are recruits we’ve picked up on this side.”

  “Wait, a few hundred soldiers?” Ji-hyeon spilled her tea on her hand. It was a comforting hurt compared to all the other kinds she had endured of late, and Fellwing shivered at the novelty of it. “New generations, new recruits?”

  “Ease her into it slowly, he said,” clucked Hassan. “As if our general ever did anything slow and easy.”

  “It’s not just you four,” said Ji-hyeon, a bloom of warmth spreading through her chest. After all she had endured, the thought that her engaging the Fifteenth Regiment that ill-fated morning hadn’t automatically condemned all her missing soldiers to death made this land seem more a heaven than a hell. “The Gate opened, you fell through and landed … landed somewhere, somewhere like this, and banded together with the other survivors, some Cobalts and some Crimson, like your friend Shea. And you’ve found others since you’ve been here. I’m getting the shape of it?”

  “I’m coming in?” came a voice from the other side of the dangling blanket, followed by the Azgarothian captain. “Sorry, you called?”

  “If you’re going to eavesdrop you ought to bring your earhorn,” said Din, smiling at Shea. “The general’s just getting the shape of it.”

  “The shape will take whatever form she gives it,” said Sasamaso. “You heard her—our general doesn’t need the baby general gloves, she needs gauntlets to hold the reins. She’s ready.”

  “She’s not even on her feet!” protested Hassan.

  “In my experience that’s not necessarily a prerequisite for strong command,” said Shea.

  “All right, all right, you lost me again,” said Ji-hyeon, easing back down on the comfortable bed and closing her right eye even as her left itched to be let free. She was glad that while they’d dusted her off and changed her into the first clean garment she’d worn since coming here, they’d had the sense to leave her insulated eye patch in place. “Just give me a moment here. Just a moment.”

  “As long as you need, General!”

  “But as quickly as you can?”

  “Shea!”

  “It’s a long way back to the Cobalts and he’s not been well, you know this!”

  “The Cobalts,” breathed Ji-hyeon, keeping her eye closed as she stroked Fellwing and listened to the lullaby of bickering captains. Exhausted as she was, she really owed it to herself to take another nap while she was on such a comfortable bed … and then her eye snapped open and she sat back up. “The Cobalts. She has them; Empress Ryuki captured them. I fled back through the Othean Gate but I was the only one. I think.”

  “Now there’s a song to hear,” said Shea, leaning over the foot of Ji-hyeon’s bed. “How many of the Fifteenth survived the Battle of the Lark’s Tongue? I know most of us tumbled through, but did—”

  “Not now, Shea, can’t you see she’s in a state?” said Hassan, which Ji-hyeon was willing to fess to, yes she was. Elated as she’d felt before, now a panic gripped her bones and rattled her soul. Her teeth were chattering in time with Fellwing’s clicking beak as she looked around in disbelief at these walking, talking phantoms or fever dreams or whatever they were. She was in hell, haunted by their spirits, it was the only explanation.

  “Shea’s not talking about your Cobalts, General … or rather, not those Cobalts,” said Sasamaso. “Our Cobalts. The ones who came through with us, and the Crimson soldiers who joined us, and all the able hands we’ve taken on since then. Near to three thousand, all waiting for their general to return.”

  “It was foretold you would pass through this place, so we volunteered to wait for you,” said Din, bearing more than a passing resemblance to a wild-eyed old crazy person. “And now that you have come we need to return to the rest, so he can see you, and so the others can see that he was right, that it was all true.”

  “Wait, how did you know where to wait?” asked Ji-hyeon, all these voices bouncing around this tight little room after so much solitude and silence making her head pound. “How did you know to wait? Who foretold this, who has to see me?”

  “The oracle?” said Shea. “He prophesied your coming, and now that you have, that means the rest of it must be true, too. Doesn’t it?”

  “Prophecies and oracles,” said Ji-hyeon, feeling sorry for whoever had given these desperate old-timers the impression she was anything but trouble for anyone who looked to her for help. “All right, Count Hassan, I’d say I’m good and eased into it now—what’s the prophecy, exactly? That I accidentally push you all into a new Gate, follow along afterward, and then what?”

  “Then you lead us back to the Star,” said Sasamaso, and from the look on the fierce Flintlander’s face she not only believed this but had for a very long time. It was the expression of a devout Chainite, or some such true believer. “We’ve built the Company back up in preparation for your coming. We’ve trained. We’ve armed ourselves. And now we’re ready.”

  “As the Star falls under the shadow of the First Dark, you guide us home,” said Hassan. “To defend our realm.”

  “But first the weapon,” murmured Din. “First you must acquire the weapon we need to save the Star.”

  Ji-hyeon tried not to smile, and then tried not to giggle, and then tried not to lose her shit altogether, but there was nothing for it, and next thing she knew she was laughing in their demented old faces. Either she had lost her mind entirely or they had. Ji-hyeon Bong, the chosen one who would save the Star. Once upon a time she had believed that, but all along she had been nothing but a snot-nosed brat, and the last two years had taught her just how naïve she had been. She laughed and laughed, and the four codgers all looked very serious about it, talking about her as if she weren’t even there, until one of them said a name that fell on her ears like a hammer to the side of a bell.

  “What did you say?”

  She had gone from hysterical laughter to deadly calm so quickly they kept talking right over her until she repeated herself, her voice breaking this time.

  “What did you say?”

  “Now you’ve done it,” Hassan growled at Shea, who had spoken the name.

  “He told us to ease you into it?” protested Shea, wrinkled hands in the air. “And that it would be a shock to hear he was here, too, and he didn’t want us to worry you, so we shouldn’t say—”

  “The oracle you follow, the one who foretold my comin
g …” said Ji-hyeon, Fellwing looking up, holding her breath along with her mistress.

  “Your father, King Jun-hwan,” said Din, meeting Ji-hyeon’s teary eye with a look of infinite pity. “I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you, General, but he was cast into the First Dark, too.”

  “And your sisters as well,” said Sasamaso, scowling at Shea. “Would that you didn’t hear in such a fashion, when you are already under such strain, but there seems little point in denying it now.”

  “Well, they’re all still alive?” said Shea. “I mean, nobody wants to have their family tossed into a Gate, but it could be worse?”

  Ji-hyeon couldn’t agree more, and pushing past their weak attempts to keep her in bed a little longer, she staggered to her gear and seized up her sword belt. She’d wasted enough time already, and it didn’t do to be late to your own prophecy … or a family reunion. Some things were true on both sides of the First Dark.

  CHAPTER

  22

  Reuniting with her creator on Jex Toth had not gone quite as Y’Homa had anticipated. Instead of taking the numinous essence of the Fallen Mother into her mortal body she found herself dwelling within the eternal flesh of the Allmother, walking the lonely halls of her viscera, praying at the altars of her organs. The Chain Canticles had gotten so, so much wrong, but the one thing they had gotten right was that the Black Pope had indeed sacrificed herself for the good of the world, and in doing so drawn in that breath of the divine that would grant her wisdom above any scholar, power over every mortal creature, and life eternal. Just as she spent her undying days in the living temple of the Fallen Mother, so, too, did the angel who had saved her from the First Dark reside inside her own frame, like a second heart that had grown inside her breast. A second brain inside her heavy skull, burning bright with questions. A second soul trapped in her shivering skin, restlessly pacing through her bones.