by A. C. Smyth
“It was not the Aerie broke it,” said Donmar, equally quietly, genuine sadness touching his face.
Deygan spread his hands. His voice stayed soft, but there was a hard edge to it. “As you wish. You put me on the throne and you kept me there, as you promised. I am sad our friendship will end this way. Go back to the Aerie. I mean to destroy it and any who resist me. Hand over Ayriene and the Chesammos changers, and I may let the innocent go free.”
Ayriene barely heard him. ‘You and the girl’? Respar had sent Donmar and Shamella to Deygan to offer her ability as a weapon? The seeings had been of Deygan and Donmar in the assembly chamber, then, not Sylas and Casian. And Miralee—Miralee saw the past, not the future? A rare talent, but not unheard-of. They had got it wrong. So terribly, horribly wrong.
“He will save us,” she said to herself in little more than a murmur. But he must not. If Sylas blasted Deygan’s army as his mother had destroyed the Lorandans, how would her troubled apprentice ever find peace?
Jesely was lost in thought, apparently trying to make sense of what he had heard.
“We offered her as a means to soothe the mountain,” Donmar said, as if to himself. “We would have used her as a true stormweaver. It was Deygan twisted her ability—turned it into something it was not intended to be. It was then he turned the Chesammos into a people to be feared and repressed.”
As they returned up the mountain road, the order to advance sounded behind them. Overhead an owl rose into the sky, joined soon after from the Aerie by a hawk of some kind. The two flew for the king’s lines and disappeared among the soldiers.
‘He will save us.’
Ayriene hoped he would not. Not if it meant him being used to kill, as his mother had been. Not if it meant Sylas becoming a weapon.
They returned to the Aerie a more sombre trio than they had set out. Deygan would destroy them, whatever they did; Jesely was sure of that. The resentment brewed over many years had become anger at the safe haven given to the Cellondorans, and now rage at what had happened to Jaevan. But what, exactly, had happened to Jaevan?
Jesely remembered the intelligent, engaging young man and offered a prayer to the Lady that it was nothing serious. He ran the words Deygan had used around in his mind: ‘mute,’ ‘unresponsive,’ ‘imbecile.’ It had to be serious; Deygan was not one to overreact.
They made their way to the main building, shouting for the gates to be closed behind them. Unmindful of the stares from the people they passed, they ran inside, up the stairs to the council chamber and sent a young novice scampering to find the other councillors.
“Deygan is determined to destroy us,” Donmar said to a stunned gathering. “Hollin, you must evacuate as many of our human staff as you can.”
“It will not be easy. The path from the back gate is narrow. It will be dangerous if too many try to descend at one time. And we must avoid panic, if we can. If we have people pushing and shoving to get out, that will be a catastrophe in the making.”
“I must leave it to you,” Donmar said. “Tell people as you will, but word will spread, once people notice others leaving by that gate.”
Hollin nodded grimly, then without waiting to hear the rest of the discussion, he rose to go.
“Masters and full changers may leave on the wing. Again, send them off a few at a time if you can, to avoid panic. Cowin, can you see to that?”
The Chesammos changer’s head snapped up. He had been talking softly to his wife, Jesely noted. Elyta was in tears, her hand resting just below her breasts. Yes, she was pregnant, he was sure, and likely scared for the child’s safety as much as for her own.
“Remember to tell them our meeting-place. It could be that Deygan is merely blustering and will back down, in which case they may return here. But if he does as he says and destroys the Aerie, we must make sure that all know the agreed meeting-point.”
Maldahur. A destination that would stoke Deygan’s paranoia all the more. A city in a land no friend to the Irenthi. Jesely could have wished they had chosen another destination, but done was done. They could hardly meet in a country ruled by Irenthi, for fear of another king finishing what Deygan had started.
Jesely’s empath talent was on full alert. He could feel the rising tide of panic among the councillors and from the people outside. Soon it would overwhelm him. He would have to leave or lose his sanity in the cacophony of other people’s thoughts. He put his hands over his ears and Ayriene—blessed Ayriene—spotted what was happening. She laid a hand on his arm.
“If it comes to it, you must go. Sylas trusts you. If you can rescue him from Deygan, do it. Take him with you.”
He patted her hand gratefully, then voiced the concern that had been building in him. “The novices. How do we get the novices out?” There were dozens of novices to get to safety, some of whom had never flown alone.
Donmar’s face paled. “We must send a master with a pipe to Adamantara. He can call, Those at the right part of their marking cycle will respond. Some part way through the cycle may respond to a full master’s call. The rest can go with the servants.”
There was a crash like booming thunder and screams of people in the distance. How had Deygan got the ballistas set up so quickly, damn him? Clattering masonry fell as the first breach in the wall erupted. Then another crash, and another. Three ballistas, then, and a short respite now while the crew dragged more rocks from the mountainside to send hurtling towards them.
“Go,” said Donmar to Ayriene. “There will be people hurt—trapped in rubble, maybe. Go and do what you can. Call any healers and healer apprentices you can find to help. Send me a master—any you trust with getting the novices to safety and who takes a second form large enough to carry a pouch with a pipe.”
She ran towards the sounds of destruction—shouts and screams, people calling to loved ones, and the sickening grating of walls collapsing as now-unstable stonework lost its bid to stay erect.
A few moments later a young man entered the chamber. Deckhan was a new master, but a steady sort—not one to panic. He took an owl as his second form, Jesely remembered.
“Master Donmar, Mistress Ayriene sent me. She said you had a task for me and I should come right away.”
Donmar nodded approvingly at Ayriene’s selection. “You have your pipe with you?”
Deckhan patted his belt pouch. “Always, Master Donmar.”
“I need you to fly to Adamantara. You’ll need to carry the pipe. Take that and a caigani and as much money as you can safely carry in your pouch. When you get there, call and keep on calling. We will send as many of the youngsters to you as we can get transformed. After that, it is up to you. If things go badly here, get them to Maldahur. Sell your pipe if you have to. You may be the only hope our youngsters have.”
A flurry of wings announced the first flight of changers taking to the wing to escape the carnage. Those who were able had taken their second form, trusting the power of hawks, falcons, and owls to take them higher and faster, but there were crows, sparrows, swallows, and others, all straining upwards to escape the attack on their home.
From over the wall Jesely could hear the thrum of many bowstrings, all releasing at once. Arrows fell into the courtyard and people ran for cover; an arrow is no less deadly for not having been aimed directly. Some found a target, the sickening thud as arrow point met flesh seeming to rip a hole in Jesely’s heart. As the first changer bodies hit the ground, their bird forms reverting to human as they died, three thumps in a row told him that the ballistas had unleashed another assault on the walls, one missile sailing higher than the others to break through the vaulted ceiling of the great hall.
This was no mere attack. Deygan meant to raze the Aerie—to make an example of them.
The next projectiles were bundles of rags soaked in pitch and set alight. They flew higher and faster than th
e rocks. One lodged in the roof of the dormitory block, another hit the library, and the third crashed through the hole in the great hall ceiling to set tapestries and paintings on fire. What little reserve of calm the people had had evaporated with those flaming fireballs. People ran, screaming, some with children in their arms and others with what few possessions they had been able to snatch up. And above them, changers took to the air, some winging their way high enough to be beyond the range of the bowmen, others plummeting to the earth, their flesh pierced with archers’ arrows.
And Jesely crouched on the ground, his hands clasped over his ears, trying to shut out the screeching of everyone’s thoughts, hardly able to comprehend what he was feeling.
Sylas could not have said how he knew something was amiss. While the king was away from the castle, he was confined to his tiny, windowless room, and he spent his time lying on his pallet, enveloped in misery. Running what had happened through his mind over and over and over again. Obsessively worrying whether he might have done something wrong. Deciding it was impossible. Going back to the beginning and rerunning the whole sorry affair.
He pounded on the door.
“Step back,” the guard on the other side ordered before opening the door, sword in hand. “What’s all the noise?” At his belt the guard carried a net of fine mesh edged with metal beads, designed to be thrown over Sylas if he showed any sign of trying to transform. Deygan had ensured that Sylas mark with the blood elder before he left. He was taking every possible precaution to ensure Sylas did not fly away from justice.
“I need to walk.”
The guard checked the room, his gaze scanning each corner. It was sparsely furnished with nowhere to hide anything or anybody from the guard’s eyes.
“You’re meant to go in the morning. You didn’t.” His tone was accusing.
“I am allowed one walk each day. The king said so. I didn’t want to go out this morning, but I do now.”
The guard scowled. Sylas could almost see the thoughts trickling through his head. If the prisoner escaped on his watch…
“It’s not like I can climb down without you noticing. And I’m not about to jump off the ramparts.” Although that would be—what had Neffan said?—a death of his choosing, not the king’s.
“Move then.” The sword point pricked his shoulder. “And don’t try anything stupid.”
Up on the wall walk he could see it—a glow on the horizon like a beacon fire, but larger. He checked the direction of the sun, dropping away to the west behind the main tower of Banunis Castle. It was sinking; the sky in that direction would soon take on the reds and oranges of a Chandris sunset. But these flames were to the north-east—the direction in which the Aerie lay. The flames moved on the horizon as if they lived and breathed.
“What’s happening over there?”
The guard spat off the wall. “The changers, ain’t it? The king took soldiers out there. Said he would demolish their halls for supporting the Chesammos rebellion. About time too, you ask me. They’ve been getting too proud, them changers. Think they’re too important, can do what they want.”
The Chesammos rebellion was an excuse, Sylas was sure: a reason the lords and commoners alike would swallow, that would free Deygan from having to admit his son was a changer and was in his rooms, unable to speak. Had Sylas brought this fate down on all of them?
He stared, horrified yet fascinated, watching his dreams burn to dust. He would never be a changer. Not now. If some survived—even if they all did—their influence would be gone. The Aerie would be gone. The people would not regard them with such superstitious awe once they were reduced to poverty and with no place of their own. The wind blew about him, coming off the mountains and chilling his face. He thought he could smell woodsmoke, and his face was cold from the breeze chilling the tears that streaked his cheeks.
Were they flying? The changers that could escape—were they flying, or were they trying to save their home? Instinctively, he reached for his kye, but even if he could change now, he would have nowhere to go.
Despite the blood elder, he felt the kye stirring—not just his bird form, but many others, all clamouring for release. It built up, throbbing inside him. Their energy grew in his chest until he felt he must let it go or be consumed. But it died away, the suppressive effect of the blood elder juice flowing in his veins. In the distance he heard a call—a strident master’s call, not a muted training pipe—but the blood elder restrained him. He could not become a bird and fly away from his guard and Banunis. And he would not. He would not leave Ayriene to her fate, and he would not abandon Jaevan—not while any hope remained of restoring him to health.
He had responsibilities.
As the red flower blossomed on the horizon, he knew he would stay. The clear note of the changer pipe rang out once more and he wondered how many novices flew towards its call and their hope of safety.
His own kye fell silent. He did not hear it again.
Chapter 30
Bodies littered the ground. Old and young alike lay there, pierced with arrows, crushed by masonry, dead or dying. It broke Jesely’s heart to leave them, but he could not stay. As people rushed past, trying desperately to find friends and family, navigating the rubble-filled streets and falling masonry, he could not help but scan their faces.
There was the novice who had called him to council earlier, her face grimy and tear-streaked. She had not responded to Deckhan’s call and would have to take her chances down the mountain path.
There was Benno, the child to whom Sylas had taken such a liking, blood pouring from a head wound. The boy crumpled to his knees, then fell face-down in the ash. Jesely wanted to go to him, but he could not. Donmar had set him to see that as many as possible escaped the carnage. He had to try to save the majority, not tend one child who might already be past saving. A young man, of an age with Sylas, stooped, flung the boy over his shoulder and took off at a run. Guilt flooded him like a red wave. The youngster had acted, but the crowd’s churning emotions had left Jesely almost paralysed.
Elyta stood holding a sobbing Irmos girl of seven or eight years old in her arms. She handed the child to Cowin, exchanged a few words and a snatched kiss, and her husband rushed towards the north gate. Elyta stared bleakly after him, her hand resting on her still-unswollen stomach. Jesely’s gut twisted. So many trying to save the weak and the helpless, and all he could do was shout the occasional order and try to block out the mayhem. It felt as though he heard every scream, lived every thought of panic or hope or despair.
He pulled himself together, finding it harder each time to find himself in the ruin of his mind.
“You must fly, Elyta. For your own sake and that of the baby you carry.”
She stared at him, her fair skin smudged with dirt, blonde hair ragged over her face where it had come loose from its braid.
“How did you know?”
“There are some who say empathy is nothing to do with the kye, just reading signals that people cannot help but give out. Whatever the truth of it, you have been giving signals that a man with one eye could read, if he were watching.”
Tears streamed down her face and she looked the way her husband had gone, but the crowds had swallowed him. “I thought my child would grow up here, Jesely. Learn our ways from the day of its birth. Be greater than either Cowin or myself. What future will it have now?”
“Our ways?”
“The child is a talent. I can feel it already. Talent knows talent, they say.”
“But… you are scarcely showing yet.”
“Then how great a talent must it be if I can feel it already?”
He took her arm, pulled her into shelter as more arrows flew overhead. The ballistas were silent for the moment, and Jesely hoped Deygan had decided they had taken enough punishment.
“Then you must fly, Elyta. G
et to Adamantara and find Deckhan. He called the novices and some of them answered. Some had never changed before—fear gave them wings. I do not know how many will arrive—I saw some killed almost as they cleared the wall walk—but some will. You must help him get them to Maldahur. He will need you. He cannot handle all the young ones by himself.”
“I will wait for Cowin. He promised to come straight back.”
Maybe he was hoping to hand the child over to someone else to take to safety. Maybe he knew who the child’s parents were. The Lady grant that she find safety.
Dimly, in the distance, he heard a changer call. Deckhan did his job well. Jesely had told him to call and keep calling and he was doing just that. He wondered how many novices had managed to reach safety. Vaguely it occurred to him that in his efforts to call as many from the Aerie as he could, Deckhan might have called young boys and girls not yet known to them—not far enough along in their change to have attracted notice but able to be called by a pipe, if the call was strong enough. Deckhan would have to take them, too. No time to see them safely back to their families and no one left to train them if he did.
What a mess. What a bloody mess.
The sounds of crying came to him over the shrieks and crashes. In the courtyard, in the pose taken by most changers before the transformation, crouched a young boy. He raised a tear-streaked face.
“M- Master Jesely,” the boy stammered, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand and straightening, flushing to be found sitting and sobbing.
Jesely wracked his memory for the boy’s name. He knew most of the novices. With his empathic talent and his easy way with people, he was the obvious choice to help settle the youngsters into their new lives, but for the life of him he could not remember this boy’s name and it troubled him more than was reasonable. He put an arm around the boy’s shoulders.