Pale Kings (Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  ‘Your time is up, Bane! I can’t have you ruining everything I’ve worked for!’ shouted Vice and with a sickening crunch and a spurt of black blood he plunged the deadly shard into Bane’s soft neck. As it punctured his windpipe, the king writhed like a delirious madman, managing nothing but a wet, gurgling howl, more blood than noise. The translucent flames spun about Vice’s arms, blinding flames devoid of heat, flames of pure energy and magick. Both Vice and Bane roared as the spell reached its crescendo. Cheska hid her face from its blinding brilliance.

  With a sickening crunch, the shard bit through the king’s spine. Eyes popping, blood-soaked, and half-dead the king went as rigid as an arrow. The crystalline flames delved deep into his sweat-drenched skin and shook both bodies like an earthquake as they ripped his soul out from within. In a moment they finished their work and rushed back into Vice. Teeth bared in agony the Arkmage’s face froze in a noiseless scream as the spell reached its ear-splitting end, and then finally died away with a thunderous rumble. The dank cell slumped like the corpse of the Skölgard king.

  Cheska watched from between her fingers as Vice got to his feet and stood, painted in blood and swaying. Bane, his head lying severed from his body, stared up at the ceiling with lifeless swollen eyes, his last breath still escaping with a barely audible hiss. His skin quickly began to pale, and within moments it had turned an ash-grey, almost white. His true colour. Cheska shuddered.

  Vice stared at the grotesque corpse of his feet. ‘I warned you, brother,’ he muttered, and then in a voice that only he could hear, he added: ‘Our father would have done the same.’ A single drop of blood escaped from his nostril. He quickly wiped it away. His head throbbed. Vice held a shaky hand out to Cheska and motioned for her to get up. His voice was hoarse and croaky. ‘Go to your rooms, and stay there until I say otherwise. Speak of this to no one.’

  Cheska nodded fearfully. Vice pulsated with magick. His very form beat like a giant heart, it quivered like a drum skin. There was a new fire in his eyes that frightened her. Trembling, she got to her feet, retrieved her torn blouse and moved slowly towards the door. As she stepped over her dead father and the growing pool of blood, she barely resisted the urge to spit on him. He had got what he deserved, nothing less, she told herself, and that was the end of it.

  As she reached the door, she was met by the sound of shouting and the noisy metallic clapping of armour. Cheska turned to see Agfrey and a host of soldiers running down the corridor. ‘Princess Cheska, your Mage! We heard shouting, is everyt…’ her words failed her as she halted at the door and beheld the bloody scene inside the cell. Her mouth fell open at the sight of her headless king lying twisted like a trampled porcelain doll on the floor. Vice prodded her armoured shoulder with a bloody finger.

  I am the king now, understand? Bane was weak, a drunk, and a traitor.’

  Agfrey nodded, staring dumbly at the bloody fingerprint Vice had left on her armour and the princess’s ripped clothes and telling bruises. The Arkmage leant close to her ear. ‘That means you, General Agfrey, are now second only to me. Do we understand each other?’ His voice slithered like an eel through her head. She nodded again, still speechless, though this time her face twitched with the smallest hint of a grin. Her eyes widened.

  ‘Good,’ replied Vice, taking that as answer. He gestured to the corpse on the floor. ‘Burn the body and throw what’s left in the sea. Bring the bloodcrown to me when you’re finished,’ he ordered, walking away. ‘I need to rest.’

  As instructed, Cheska went to her rooms, saying nothing to anybody, leaving the soldiers to gawp at the dead King Bane. Agfrey turned to her men and quickly found her voice. ‘The king is dead! Long live the king!’ she shouted, and they joined in heartily. The general signalled to them. ‘You heard him, burn the body,’ she ordered, wiping the sweat from her brow.

  Keen daemon eyes stared down from above, keen daemon eyes as old as age itself, watching a headless body burn in a shallow grave in the hills above the city they called Krauslung. The severed head lay near the feet of the body, staring up at the stars through gaps in the clouds, sightless and frozen in disbelief. Far, far above, proud wings flapped and teeth sneered. A putrescent smell of rotting flesh and mould wafted across the ice-cold plain, a plain full of greedy shadows with claws. The hulking daemon turned his attention to the crimson stains on his claws, the leftovers of a crushed goddess lying dead and devoured somewhere in the nothing. With a smile, the daemon licked his claw, savouring the warm salty taste of fresh meat, and then shivered with a tingle of anticipation. Something was stirring in the world beneath him. The interwoven parts and pieces of a plan long frozen in construction were starting to spasm and flutter into life like the unsure wings of some monstrous butterfly. Change floated up to him on the breathless wind of the void, and Orion basked in the feel of it…

  Chapter 14

  “Who can tell what rumour is, or fable, or story? Who can tell where the fact ends and myth begins? Are they not the same, and stroll hand in hand? The eddas and poems our skalds sing are no less important than written history, and are just as valuable. In ten thousand years we ourselves will all be myth and fable, and the monsters of our days will be nothing but song and story for the children.”

  In a letter to the Arkmage Åddren from the critic Áwacran in the year 876

  Farden was dreaming. His dreams were odd to say the least, without any shape or the barest of meaning, full of strange words and even stranger shadows. The mage’s mind tumbled through fields of the absurd. Blurry ghosts of his subconscious drifted in and out of the haze, chatting idly about war and making little sense at all, nothing but mumbles and half-hearted moans. Bleary-eyed, Farden wandered on through his dream, and somehow found himself lying in his bed.

  The mage’s rooms were filled with fog. His bed stretched on far beyond his feet or hands could reach, stretching for miles and miles until they struck the sheer granite cliffs that were his walls. The sheets were piled about around him like a rolling white sea. There was a woman lying beside him, that much was sure, and she whispered in his ear and raked her sharp cat-like nails along his back. He could feel her soft foreign skin pressing against his, her naked skin. His hands felt slick with sweat in his dream. Sheets tried to drown them both. Pillows slid down waves of cotton.

  Slim hands of smoke and shadow explored his body, teasing him, stroking his aching hardness. Farden felt his own rough hands exploring hers. Her moans echoed against the granite cliffs as they rolled about in the frozen white sea of sheets. She pulled him inside her and held him, in every sense of the word, as tightly as she could, pulling and searching and driving him as deep into her as possible until they became one being writhing and groaning and lost in pleasure. Every movement was oleaginous. Time trickled past like thick honey, and Farden was lost in the unexpected scent of flowers, wine, and a woman’s skin.

  Farden’s head swam as together they rode the roiling waves of ecstasy, drowning in each other, and just as her rhythms brought him close to a crashing wave of climax she faded into the fog as quickly as she had materialised, and Farden was left to roll around in the blankets on his own, breathless and dizzy and alone.

  All of a sudden, the dream shifted, in the impulsive way that dreams tend to do, and suddenly the mage was standing in a dark and gloomy corridor, full of shadows. Soldiers without faces scuttled past like crabs. There was smoke in the air. Flames licked at the horizons of the mage’s dream. The air felt hot, and Farden remembered the burning sands of the desert, and his uncle’s dreams of fire and falling stars.

  Another woman, tall and imperious, clad in a white dress, drifted serenely through the chaos. She walked without walking. A hawk followed her, and in the gloom beside her strode a man, tall and muscular and with a stormy countenance. His shadow was impossibly large, winged, and dangerous. As they walked past they stared at the mage with solemn looks, searching his face and his soul as Ilios had. In their hands were glowing rocks, pulsating with white and gold light. F
arden watched them pass with a confused face, and forgot them instantly.

  The gryphon was there too, flapping above the flames and screeching. Farden quickly noticed the corridor was without a roof, and as he stared in confusion he realised it was not a corridor at all, but a narrow street lined with tall leaning buildings. Their windows were full of flames and frantic eyes, and their tiled roofs smoked like tired old men crowded around a tavern table. Their crumbled doors yawned. Chimneys crumpled and sagged. A bitter wind pushed and jostled.

  A figure loomed out of the flames then, a figure Farden knew all too well. Teeth creaking and grinding, he clenched his jaw as Vice strode towards him, a confident sneer pasted onto his lips. Farden put his wrists together and pulled every scrap of magick he had from his veins.

  But nothing came.

  Nothing came at all.

  Farden tried again and still nothing. Vice kept coming at him, as calm and confident as a blacksmith’s hammer. Farden strained with all of his might to summon even the smallest of spells, but the dream, as all dreams tend to be, was unrelenting in its frustrating helplessness, its treacle-pace. When he looked up again Vice was towering over him, grinning like a court jester, his mouth full of mocking teeth. Lightning filled the air. The Arkmage’s hands glowed with gold and white light, and suddenly Farden found himself lying face down in a puddle, hands wet and face dripping. He rolled over as quickly as the hazy dream would allow, and looked up to find nothing but a quiet room, draped in shadows and disproportionate angles. Vice was gone. The air remained hot, but the room was silent and calm compared to the bitter, windy streets and their smouldering buildings.

  Farden tried to move and wasn’t surprised to find himself pinned to floor. He looked up and saw a bed. Cheska was there, lying so still and quiet that at first Farden thought she was dead. She sighed and rolled over and he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. It echoed around the room and mocked him. The mage cursed his bastard dream, and tried to stand, but the floor held on tight.

  Something was moving, however, in the corner of the room. Hooded and alone, a figure stepped out of the shadows brandishing a wicked-looking knife. Farden tried to shout but his throat was dry and his tongue stubborn. No sound came. The figure stood at the side of the bed and raised the knife high above her head. The polished blade glittered in the half-light. Before Farden could even flinch, the figure plunged the blade deep into Cheska’s breast, and the mage screamed inside his head. Somewhere a child cried out.

  Arms and fingers of fire abruptly burst through the door, and before he knew it, the room was swallowed by flame. Farden lay there numb and unflinching, as the roof caved in on his legs with a fountain of sparks. The smell of burning flesh filled his nose. A tear turned to steam on his cheek.

  Just before he awoke he could have sworn he heard his name being called, and the strange sensation of cold raindrops falling on his hot skin. A face stared at him from the ceiling, caught in a shaft of moonlight.

  ‘Farden,’ said Elessi, kicking the foot of the bed again. Farden was dead to the world, snoring loudly and moaning. His eyes wriggled behind their lids and occasionally he would twitch a hand or a foot. The maid sighed impatiently. Once more she dipped her fingers in the jug of water she was carrying and flicked them at the sleeping mage. ‘Farden!’ she shouted, and the mage awoke with a snort. He sat bolt upright and flailed his arms in front of his face.

  ‘Wha?’ he coughed hoarsely, blinking in the dawn sunlight. It was then that his hangover struck, like a surprise party for one, an ambush to his skull, and Farden wordlessly put his hands to his forehead and moaned. Curse that ale, he thought. It even hurt to think.

  ‘Well it serves you right,’ muttered Elessi. She put the jug on the table with a thud and then tossed a fresh set of clothes onto his bed. Farden ignored them and groaned again.

  ‘Have a fun night, did we?’ she asked, not really wishing to know the answer. Elessi couldn’t help herself. She watched the mage roll over and fold a pillow over his ears. Shaking her head, she huffed and then left, remembering to slam the door as loudly as she could. She was not in the mood to be further disappointed.

  Farden flinched as the door banged. Wraith-like remnants of a fiery dream swam around his throbbing head, the memories of which seemed to have been burnt away by the sunlight. He remembered eyes like windows, a glowing knife, and strange women in even stranger rooms. He remembered Cheska and the knife and shuddered at the thought. Nightmares, he half-thought half-hoped, and at the back of his mind he prayed it was not another one of Ilios’s visions. Not again.

  The mage prodded the sheets around him. Had there been a woman in his bed? The last thing he remembered that wasn’t a foggy blur was saying goodnight to Lerel. He remembered kissing her, or she kissing him, but the rest was blank. The mage groaned and lifted up the sheets and found he was well and truly naked. He prodded his shoulders and investigated his sides but there were no scratch-marks, just old scars and cold-sweat skin. Farden gave up trying to think and just let the hangover do its worst. Maybe a roof had fallen on his head after all, he moaned inwardly. It certainly felt like it.

  Farden dozed for another hour, watching the pale winter sun rise above his snow-covered balcony through half-closed eyelids. The rosy dawn light did not last long. Ranks of clouds sidled across the sky, full of snow and sleet. The Long Winter was getting longer.

  Eventually the mage forced himself into a sitting position and summoned enough energy to dress himself. A quick spell dispersed most of the headache but even so, the stubborn throbbing refused to leave. Hoping to hydrate the pain into submission, Farden drank some of the water Elessi had left for him and splashed the rest on his face. He thought about looking in the mirror but his stomach was queasy enough, and he decided it would be best to just pull his hood low and hope for the best. Surely he couldn’t be the only one looking down the barrel of a filthy hangover this morning, decided Farden; most of Hjaussfen must be nursing a headache. Buoyed by this oddly comforting conclusion he stepped out into the corridor and went to find the his uncle.

  But Tyrfing was far from hungover. In fact, he was quite the opposite.

  Having borrowed Farden’s Weight from Durnus, he had been to Paraia and back several times that morning, jumping back and forth from his cave and returning with bundles of equipment, scrolls, and entire suits of his experimental armour. He was a whirlwind of activity, leaping to and fro, testing and twisting, explaining and lecturing. It was as though someone had taken away his dusty old mumbling tongue and swapped it for one that refused to stay still and quiet. Simply listening to him made Farden tired.

  Nevertheless, the mage found himself a chair and watched as a gang of Siren helpers stacked his uncle’s armour into ordered piles. Lakkin was there, helping Tyrfing to supervise the whole thing. He looked on with an expression of curiosity that bordered on the intense.

  There was more of Tyrfing’s armour than Farden had first realised, and some of it was stranger than he had imagined. He prodded a nearby bronze shield with his foot.

  ‘I’d watch that one if I were you, Farden,’ warned his uncle, and no sooner had he spoken than the shield began to whine and click. Tyrfing rushed forward to grab it. He swiftly lifted it off the ground and held it far away from his body. The shield whirred and ticked disturbingly. The Sirens looked on, intrigued.

  ‘What is it doing?’ asked Lakkin.

  ‘Watch,’ Tyrfing replied, and with a sudden twang, rows of golden razors sprang from the edges of the shield and began to rotate around its circumference with disconcerting speed. Tyrfing lowered the shield to the floor and chuckled as sparks sprayed across the granite. The squeal of the metal biting the stone made Farden wince. The Sirens nodded and grinned approvingly. After a flick of the mage’s thumb and a clicking noise, the spinning razorblades came to a grinding halt and retreated back inside the shield. Tyrfing carefully rested it against the wall.

  ‘That’s worrying,’ said Farden with a wry look.

>   ‘Got to mind the fingers with that one,’ said Tyrfing, wiggling his hands.

  ‘Where did you get all this stuff?’ asked his nephew, and Tyrfing replied with a shrug.

  ‘Well, like I told you in Paraia I made most of it. The rest I’ve collected from passing traders, nomads, and travelling markets over the years. You’d be surprised at the things that end up lost in the desert.’

  ‘It’s an impressive collection,’ said Lakkin, leaning into the conversation. Tyrfing nodded, almost managing to hide his pride.

  ‘Thank you. Some of this stuff is Arka-made and designed to deflect magick and spells, which will come in handy against the mages and maybe even some of the lesser Written. I was hoping you dragon-riders could make use of it.’

  Lakkin smiled. ‘If it’s light enough then I’m sure we can.’

  ‘Good. We need every edge we can get,’ sighed the old mage.

  ‘We?’ asked Farden, looking to Tyrfing. ‘You’re going to Krauslung too?’

  Tyrfing twitched, and hesitated. ‘Well, I thought that was obvious.’

  Farden shrugged. ‘I assumed that you’d stay here, what with Vice and everything.’

  Tyrfing twitched again. ‘We need all the help we can get, Farden.’

  ‘That we do,’ Farden replied. ‘So, where’s my armour?’ he asked. His uncle shook his head and tapped his finger to his temple.

  ‘Come and see me before you leave for Albion,’ he said, walking away.

  Farden called after him. ‘You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’ he asked.

  ‘Just come and see me later!’ said his uncle, brandishing the Weight. With a flash of light and a loud crackle he was gone, leaving nothing but empty space and wobbling air behind him. Farden sighed and wandered off to find some sanity in the mountain.