Dark Immolation

by Christopher Husberg

“The translation goes well,” Jane said, ignoring Cinzia’s look. “There are ten major portions to the Codex. The first nine, of course, are named for the original disciple who penned each section. We have translated the books of Elessa, Baetrissa, Arcana, Sirana, Danica, Lucia, and Ocrestia. We are about to begin translating the book of Cinzia.”

  Ader and Sammel grinned at Cinzia at the mention of her namesake. Cinzia, like most firstborn daughters, was named after one of the original Nine Disciples that served Canta while she walked the Sfaera.

  “And what have you learned?” Ehram asked. “What do the Nine Scriptures teach you?”

  For the first time, Jane hesitated. She and Cinzia looked at each other. They are not ready, Cinzia thought. The Codex had taught them many things, about the creation of the Sfaera, the origins of Canta and the other gods and goddesses. But it had also contained warnings, of things happening now and of things to come. A tremor slithered up Cinzia’s spine.

  Jane apparently thought so as well. “We will reveal what has been taught to us in time,” she said. “But I think we have more pressing matters. The dozens of people camping outside, for one.”

  “Bloody squatters is all they are, if you ask me,” Uncle Ronn muttered.

  “They’re your followers, Jane!” Ader could not hide his excitement.

  “They are calling themselves after us, our family name,” Lana said, obviously proud of the fact. “They call themselves Odenites.”

  Jane smiled but Cinzia thought she saw a shadow of uncertainty in her eyes. Good, Cinzia thought. Let her be uncomfortable. She knows this is going too far.

  “Is that who they are?” Jane asked.

  Ehram and Pascia exchanged a glance. Ehram nodded. “More or less,” he said. “We know the dangers of such things. We know that we only just escaped the Crucible’s hand in Navone. But…”

  “We couldn’t turn them away,” Pascia said. “And there were only a few of them, at first. People who sought refuge, people whom the Denomination—” she glanced at Cinzia when she said the word—“has harmed, or neglected.”

  “We wanted to invite them into the house,” Soffrena said, “but Uncle Ronn doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”

  Ronn grunted. “This is my house. I will run it how I see fit.”

  Pascia smiled, although Cinzia could tell her mother disagreed with Ronn. “We have had that conversation many times over the past few weeks, and we know where you stand, Ronn. We will respect your authority here.”

  “But they are already too numerous to live in the house,” Eward said, “and they just keep coming. New arrivals almost every day, now.”

  “How are they living?” Cinzia asked. “Are we providing for them?”

  “Not exactly,” Ehram said. “They take water from the pond and the stream that feeds it. Some of them catch fish from the sea, and a few have begun to find clams on the beach, and there is fruit in the orchard and other forage. The wealthier ones go into Tinska to buy food and supplies. While he does not want them in the house itself, Ronn has nevertheless been gracious enough to allow them access to the resources of his estate.”

  “I don’t know how much longer that grace can last,” Ronn said. “We have had a good few years recently, but my resources will only go so far. And the local fishermen will not be happy about the encroachment upon their business.”

  Cinzia felt a rush of affection for her uncle. Ronn had always had a compassionate soul beneath his stern exterior. But his compassion, in this case, was not exactly necessary.

  “We gave the servants the option to leave, if they desired,” Pascia said. “A few left, but most stayed. A good thing, too—we need their help more than ever.”

  “Father says the people are a blessing in disguise,” Soffrena said. She was looking at Jane. “Is that what they are? A blessing?”

  All eyes turned to Jane, including Cinzia’s. Jane was silent.

  If she does not say it, Cinzia thought, I will.

  “They’re a problem,” Cinzia said, her voice harder than she meant it to be. “They will only bring trouble. The Cantic Denomination won’t ignore such things. They will bring their fist down on us, and it will not be like Navone. They will not be nearly so… accommodating.”

  Ehram made as if to speak, but Cinzia continued over him. “And even if the Denomination does not come, how much longer can we accommodate such a gathering?”

  “You’re both correct,” Jane said. Cinzia rolled her eyes. “Cinzia, the people outside are a problem. They will only bring trouble, if we seek to manage them ourselves. But Soffrena, too, is right.” Jane smiled at Soffrena, who smiled tentatively in return. “Canta often sends us problems to bless us. To help us learn. This is one of those times.”

  “We should send them away,” Cinzia insisted.

  Jane was shaking her head when Gorman cleared his throat at the entrance to the dining hall.

  “I apologize,” he said stiffly. “I do not mean to interrupt, but someone wants to see Cinzia and Jane. Someone very insistent—”

  Astrid sprinted into the room. “You need to come with me,” she said. “There’s a problem.”

  “I knew it,” Cinzia said. “The people are already causing problems—”

  “It isn’t them,” Astrid said. “It’s Knot.”

  5

  “ANOTHER EPISODE?” JANE ASKED, as they made their way through the mass of people.

  “Yes.” That’s a good thing, right? Astrid thought. It’s happened before, and he got over it. He’ll get over it again.

  “You left him out here? With them?” Cinzia asked.

  Astrid shot the woman a glare. “What was I supposed to do? He wouldn’t come with me. He didn’t recognize me.”

  “What do you mean? He didn’t recognize his own daughter?”

  Astrid glared at the young man who’d spoken. She looked at Jane. “Who’s he? Why’s he coming with us?”

  “He’s our—”

  “I’m their brother,” the young man said. “I just want to help.”

  Astrid rolled her eyes. Cinzia sighed, and placed a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “Eward,” she said, “we appreciate your eagerness to help, but…”

  Their voices faded as Astrid and Jane walked quickly to where the people had gathered. Astrid frowned. Apparently Cinzia and Jane’s brother—Eward—thought Astrid was Knot’s daughter. She had never liked that particular cover; it felt fake.

  It is fake, idiot. How else did you expect it to feel?

  The rest of the Oden family, thankfully, had remained inside. Astrid didn’t want their first impression of Knot to be… this.

  With Jane’s help they made their way through the gathering to find Knot in the middle of it.

  “For Canta’s sake,” he was saying, “will one of you tell me what is going on? How did I get here? Who are all of you?”

  Astrid ran up to him. The small crowd had given Knot a wide berth; a young woman with bright orange hair was trying to reason with him. Knot did not seem to be responding well. His eyes were wide and rolling.

  “I’m back,” Astrid said.

  Knot looked down at her, and she hated the disdain in his eyes. “You,” he said. “The child. You said you would bring help. Well? Where is the help?”

  “I’m the help.” Jane stepped forward. The crowd took a collective step back.

  The red-headed woman who had been trying to calm Knot turned to face Jane. “Your Grace,” she said, bowing. “This man is troubled. He does not seem to understand how he got here. We have informed him he is in Tinska, but he claims he has never been here before. He claims to be from Alizia.”

  Knot, or whoever he was, huffed. “Not just Alizia,” he said, raising his chin. “The great city of Cornasa, on the island of Alna. I am High Prince Dorian Gatama, and I demand an explanation of what has been done to me. If I have been kidnapped, you must inform me immediately. I can have the ransom paid quickly and we can all be on our way.” He looked at Jane. “You,” he said, “yo
u say you can help me. So help me.”

  Jane approached Knot, slowly. She thanked the woman, who stepped back into the crowd. Then Jane looked at Knot.

  “You have not been kidnapped, High Prince Gatama, I assure you. You are in Tinska, in northern Khale, at the Harmoth estate. I am Jane Oden, daughter of Ehram and Pascia Oden. You’re perfectly safe. If you will please come with me, we will get you the help you need.”

  Knot, or Prince Gatama, or whoever the hell he was, shook his head. “No. I’ll not leave this spot until someone has told me how I got here.”

  Cinzia stepped forward. “Your Grace,” she said, bowing, “I am Cinzia Oden, Jane’s elder sister. I can vouch for her words, and for your safety. But first, I’m afraid there is another issue at hand.” Cinzia began speaking quietly enough that only Jane and Knot could hear. And Astrid, of course, but Astrid could hear a whisper from a dozen paces further away.

  “You have a blood blight, Your Grace,” Cinzia whispered.

  Knot’s face immediately paled. “A blood blight,” he whispered, almost choking on the words. “How… how long?”

  “You contracted it months ago, on Alna, and were sent north to find treatment in Triah. Then you went missing. The blood blight must have already gotten to your brain, Your Grace. You were missing for months, and have only now been found.”

  Knot’s knees almost buckled. “Are you… are you sure?”

  Cinzia nodded, and Astrid gave her credit for her solemnity, and the ruse itself. Alizians, especially Alizian nobles, were notoriously afraid of the blood blight.

  “We will return you to the proper care, but in the meantime my sister is a physician, a healer. Allow her to help you.”

  Knot nodded, vigorously. “Yes, of course. Please, do anything you can.”

  Cinzia looked back at Jane, who stepped forward. “Please, Your Grace. If you would kneel.”

  Knot hesitated. Jane, don’t be a fool, Astrid thought. You never ask an Alizian noble to kneel. But Knot’s—or Prince Gatama’s—terror took precedence, and he knelt. Jane walked behind him and placed her hands on his head. She looked up to the sky, and began moving her lips, although Astrid heard no words.

  The people around them had fallen eerily silent. A chill shook Astrid, the same feeling she’d experienced the other time Jane had done this to Knot. Jane was healing him, she claimed. With Canta’s power. Astrid wasn’t sure it was that simple, but it made Knot come back, and that was all she cared about.

  There was perfect silence for a moment, as Jane’s lips moved. Then she stopped.

  Knot stood, looking around him. His eyes found Astrid. “Happened again?” he asked.

  Astrid nodded, trying to keep from showing emotion. She wanted to grin, and she wanted to cry, and she wasn’t sure which she would do first. “You’re back now, nomad.”

  The people gathered around them were already whispering. “Did you see that?” “She healed him!” “She brought Canta’s power down from the skies!” “She cast the daemon out of him!”

  That last one stuck. “Great,” Astrid said to herself.

  “What’re they talkin’ about?” Knot asked. Astrid was relieved to hear the usual gruffness in his voice. “Was I really that bad?”

  Astrid shrugged. “Pretty bad, but not in the daemonic way. You were an Alizian noble.”

  Knot glanced at Jane, who was now moving among the people, trying to calm them down, to explain what had happened.

  What had actually happened was inexplicable, at least not without context. The fact that Knot had a bunch of other souls inside of him, souls that seemed intent on getting out recently, wouldn’t go over well. Perhaps daemonic possession was the best explanation, for now.

  “She healed me?” Knot asked, still looking at Jane.

  Astrid nodded. “Why can she bring you back?”

  “Don’t know. But I wouldn’t mind finding out.”

  “Finding out what?” Cinzia asked. She, too, did not seem particularly comfortable with her sister’s relationship with the people now flocking around her.

  “What your sister does to Knot, to make him come back,” Astrid said. “Don’t suppose you know anything about it?”

  Cinzia shook her head. “I don’t understand anything going on with Jane. This is all so…”

  “Absurd?” Astrid offered. People travelling across Khale just to see a woman who stood up to the Denomination. What was the point? The Denomination would never stand for it, not in the long term.

  “That was clever what you did back there, anyway,” Astrid said when Cinzia didn’t respond. “A blood blight was quick thinking. You got him to calm down when I didn’t think there was anything that could.”

  Cinzia shrugged. “It was nothing. I’m going back inside. You’re both welcome to come with me.”

  “Wouldn’t mind getting away from this lot,” Knot said.

  “Me too,” Astrid agreed. Her ears still picked up whispers of “casting out daemons.” As ridiculous as the idea was, the phrase made Astrid wonder. Jane, of all people, had never treated Astrid with the blunt mix of terror and disdain that everyone else showed when they discovered what she really was. Even Knot, when he’d first realized she was a vampire, had hated and feared her. But Jane had never treated her that way.

  Maybe Jane truly did have power when she placed her hands on Knot’s head. Maybe what she claimed when it came to the Goddess was true.

  Maybe Jane could cast out daemons.

  6

  Dungeons of the imperial palace, Izet

  “EAT YOUR FOOD, GIRL.”

  The gaoler glared at Winter through the bars in her cell door. Winter stared back at him dully. The gaoler had slid a tray with Winter’s “food” on it through the hatch at the bottom of the door an hour or so ago. The mush had long gotten cold.

  “Boss said you got to eat,” the gaoler growled. His Rodenese accent was thick, his words clipped and halting. “Orders is orders, and you must follow them much as me.”

  Winter said nothing. She did not move. The man slammed his fist against the door, making a sound that echoed throughout the dungeon. Winter might’ve jumped, if she’d cared enough to be frightened.

  “Just look at your bloody meal,” the gaoler said, almost whining. “Something there we ain’t given you before. Boss thinks you’ll enjoy it.”

  Winter frowned. This wasn’t the first time she’d not eaten her food, but it was the first time they’d heckled her about it. She didn’t care much what it was the gaoler thought was so interesting, except that it might break up the monotony of her captivity. It’d been months, and they hadn’t killed her yet. Hadn’t spoken to her, either, except for the occasional word or two from a guard. Winter was beginning to wonder whether she’d been forgotten—and whether that was the point; she’d been framed for the murder of the emperor and the Tokal-Ceno, the two highest-ranking men in Roden. She had assumed her punishment would be death, perhaps preceded by torture. But maybe being forgotten was the torture. Maybe this would be her routine for the rest of her life.

  Which was why the mere implication of something different made Winter stand and walk towards the door to inspect the food.

  “Aye, missy. Do as you’re bloody well told.”

  Winter ignored the man. Hubb was his name, and he was simultaneously the cruelest and the stupidest of the gaolers. Enri Crawn was the kindest, although his kindness was closer to indifference, if you could call it as much.

  Enri Crawn likes to kick up his feet and smoke a pipe, Winter thought. Enri Crawn isn’t one to ask questions.

  She stopped.

  There, on the scarred wooden tray on which sat the bowl of cold mush and the cup of stale water, was a crystalline substance, roughly the size of Winter’s thumb, pale and opaque.

  Winter started sweating. The whole world fell away, and only the crystal remained. Faltira, or what many termed frost, was a powerful narcotic with highly addictive properties. It was also the only means by which a small percentage of t
he human population could access the cognitive arts. Psimancy. Winter, as a tiellan, shouldn’t have been able to use frost for that purpose. But she could.

  The last time she had used it had been months ago: in the throne hall of the imperial palace, when she’d smashed the place to rubble, and a number of huge, otherworldly monsters along with it. When she had watched her friends die.

  Winter was immediately suspicious. Why would they give her faltira? Who would dare to risk it? With one dose Winter could probably kill half the people in the bloody palace. They had to know this, whoever her captors were. And yet there, before her, was a frost crystal.

  Perhaps it was scratch, a placebo that offered none of the effects of true faltira.

  There was only one way to find out. Winter picked up the crystal, felt the familiar lightness of it. She hesitated. The last time she had taken faltira, when she had annihilated the Outsiders in the throne hall, she had done it for a specific reason. She had done it to help her friends. It had felt like a revelation, like something that would change her life. And, perhaps, if her friends had survived, it would have. Perhaps if Knot were still here, if she still had people who cared about her, Winter would be different. She might fight the compulsion to take the crystal.

  But Winter knew the truth. She was alone. Her revelation seemed petty, inconsequential. There was nothing left, now. There was Winter.

  And, now, there was faltira. Winter raised the crystal to her lips, and swallowed.

  Her suspicions that the crystal might be scratch dispelled almost immediately. The power began to course through her within moments, the fire roaring, the ice cooling her skin. Winter smiled. Then, she reached out with a tendron. This would be her prison no longer. She would punish those who had put her here, who had killed those she—

  Nothing happened.

  She reached again, with multiple tendra this time, the sinewy invisible limbs snaking out from her mind to the door, the bars before her, the lock, and the guard outside. Nothing. They must have given her scratch, after all. Some drug that made Winter feel the high, but gave her no access to the power. The Void was as far from her as it had always been, without faltira.