by David Hair
By now, the travellers were completely caught up in Jesco’s story – he never wasted a crowd. Raythe smiled at the wide-eyed faces. Even Varahana was enjoying herself. Then he glanced at his daughter and noticed that her gaze wasn’t on Jesco, but on Rhamp’s son Banno – who was staring back. He tapped Zar’s shoulder while giving the young man a hard look, breaking up that little mutual admiration society, at least for the moment.
Unaware of the minor drama being played out, Jesco went on, ‘Vashtariel’s palace – his rath – was built on rock so full of istariol that it floated above the earth and had to be chained to the ground by huge links of metal. Rath Argentium, it was called, the Silver Palace. He had thirty consorts, one for every day of the month, all of surpassing beauty, and he bedded each in turn on a giant bed of silk and pearls. He used sorcery to create dragons on which he rode as other men rode horses. Every day, he trained with bladed weapons against the city’s best gladiators, and after slaying them, he would breakfast on the liver of the fallen. His favourites were lavished with luxurious gifts, but his enemies were invariably left broken and enslaved.’
Jesco reached down for his goblet to wet his throat before continuing, ‘Oh, to be a god-king, to live each moment to the fullest, without fear of recrimination, reproach or censure.’
The crowd made jest and called encouragement and Jesco started strutting about like a preening Aldar lord, bantering with his audience before resuming his tale.
‘Vashtariel’s courtiers grew sick of the king’s mad excesses and began to dream of bringing him down, but such was his prowess at arms that none dared take him on. However, his most devious foe was his closest advisor: his brother and high vizier, Tashvariel, who had always been jealous of his elder brother and longed to surpass him. One of his duties was to prepare each consort for the royal bed, and he ached to possess them, especially silver-tongued Shameesta, the chief among them. But the court was full of watchers, no consort was ever left unattended and so his obsessions went unsated – and being unsated, they consumed him.’
The listening crowd, murmuring in anticipation, reverently made the sign of Gerda the Intercessor, for this was also her tale.
‘Tashvariel began concealing istariol powder in the livers of the dead gladiators, the only part of Vashtariel’s meals that the tasters were forbidden to eat. As the istariol crystallised in him, the god-king became ever more convinced of his own divinity, and his already strong sorcerous powers became even more powerful – but they also became noticeably erratic.
‘With the first part of his plot going according to plan, Vizier Tashvariel started on the next. He raised up his chosen champion, a gladiator named Gerda, and taught her a secret path of sorcery: a counter to the mizra called praxis, and when he was certain she was ready, he staged a series of gladiatorial games. Without any intervention on his part, Gerda easily triumphed in every one. To honour her prowess, God-King Vashtariel chose Gerda as his next prey.’
Jesco drew his blade and whisked through a series of theatrical fencing moves, making his audience cheer and jeer, before going on, ‘On that fateful morning, Gerda was brought to the palace’s sacred arena, destined to be the god-king’s sacrifice – and his breakfast. Clad in imperial purple, with his flowing black locks and skin gleaming like copper, he was a vision of dark majesty – but Gerda, pale of skin and hair, shone like a fallen star.
‘Vashtariel strove against the gladiator, battering at her defences, but Gerda was different from all of his previous opponents for, unknown to him, she was filled with the might of her human god, Deo. She countered his every blow, until he decided he must cheat and bring her down with his sorcery – but when he tried to destroy her with the mizra, she countered with the unknown praxis, undoing his magic. He barely recognised the emotion filling him, for it had been a very long time since he had last felt fear, as he tried ever more frantically to slay her.
‘Every clever ploy and subtle technique failed, even brute force falling away before her skill and agility, and at last her weaving blade pierced his heart and the god-king fell at her feet.’
A hush had fallen, but at those words everyone made the Sign of Gerda.
Jesco struck his heroic pose again before resuming his tale. ‘But Vashtariel refused to die! He sought to restart his own heart with the mizra, a sorcery requiring such strength and skill that only a madman would have dreamed of essaying it. With his power dangerously augmented by the excessive istariol he’d been unwittingly consuming and his control undermined by delusions and fear, his spells were both blindingly successful – and disastrous.
Invoking his gods, he opened himself up to the full might of the mizra – and it consumed him! This unleashed a vast explosion that brought rack and ruin upon all his kind, ending the era of the Aldar and plunging the land of Shamaya into eternal winter and centuries of misery. Indeed, the Ice Age Vashtariel summoned grips us even now, half a millennia on.’
A hush fell on the circle, although everyone here knew the old tale.
Jesco waited for a few seconds, then asked, ‘Did Vashtariel survive? No: the god-king who had destroyed so many of his own people was consumed utterly. Did his treacherous brother Tashvariel profit from his perfidy? No, for he too was consumed, along with glorious Shameesta and all the other queens.
‘Did any Aldar survive?’ He looked around, shaking his head sadly, and whispered, ‘No, the Aldar perished, from the oldest man to the youngest babe in arms. They are gone, leaving the world to us humans.’
Utter silence fell as everyone there contemplated the passing of the dread Aldar.
It was broken by Mater Varahana, who put in piously, ‘But let us not forget Gerda, who was shielded by Deo and taken to sit at his side, on the right hand of the Sacred Throne, where she serves as his maiden: ever virgin, ever our champion.’
‘No good deed goes unpunished,’ quipped Jesco, before giving everyone a flourishing bow. ‘Thus ends my tale of the fall of Vashtariel, last god-king of the Aldar.’
He was warmly applauded, though Varahana threw him an arch look at that final aside. After that, the musicians struck up another reel, Jesco helped himself to some of Gravis’ ale and the night’s informal festivities went on.
‘Is that really what happened?’ Zar asked Raythe. She’d been too young for school when they’d fled Otravia and since then her education had concentrated on reading, writing, counting, map-reading: the necessary skills of life; with little time for history.
‘So Mother Church would have it,’ Raythe replied carefully.
‘Not really, then?’ Zar said, matching his tone.
‘Who knows for certain? If it is true, then who survived to tell it? But it neatly justifies all manner of things, the rise of the Church, most of all, and the usage of praxis-sorcery.’
‘Then what do you say happened?’
Raythe thought about how to reply. Church orthodoxy was strict in the empire – in Bolgravian territories, Jesco would have swiftly found himself surrounded, marched off his stage and locked up for such an impious rendition of the tale – and one day they’d all return to that strict world. But he wanted his daughter to grow up with a questioning mind.
‘What the historians taught us in Otravia, before the Church took over the universities, was that the Aldar were humans, like us, just a different tribe. But they misused their sorcerous power – mizra – and the istariol during their dynastic wars and that’s what destroyed our climate. The polar caps swallowed up the deep north and south and the world became much colder. There are archaeological finds I’ve seen that back this theory. But as for the rest . . .’
Zar took that in as Norrin and Jesco struck up a lively jig and suddenly most of the crowd were bouncing around. She stood and stretched. ‘You know, Dad, I think I do want to dance.’
Looking around, he smiled; it was the happiest evening of their journey so far. ‘Then off you go,’ he told her.
She offered a hand. ‘You coming?’
His smile va
nished, because suddenly it wasn’t Zar standing there but Mirella, imperiously demanding that he waltz with her: their first dance. ‘I . . . I think I’ll sit this one out,’ he stammered, shocked at the wave of emotion rushing over him. ‘Go on, have some fun.’
She pulled a face, but an instant later she was standing amidst the women, quickly catching the rhythm of the dance as they spun and twisted, moving forward to meet the line of men, dipping, then retreating. When, moments later, Banno Rhamp appeared opposite her in the male line, her face lit up.
Raythe could feel himself quietly fuming, but it was all part of her growing up, so he let it go and instead, enjoyed the sight of her joyous face. She’d not had many such moments in recent years.
Soon almost everyone was up and the ground was quivering at the enthusiastic stamping of so many feet.
‘Do you dance, Master Vyre?’ a woman drawled and he turned to see Tami standing over him, a hand on her hip.
‘I used to,’ he said tersely. ‘Shouldn’t you be with Elgus?’
‘The old fart’s too deep in his cups to dance, and his sons are idiots.’
‘You got yourself in there,’ he said unsympathetically. ‘I didn’t even know you were with him.’
‘No, you didn’t, did you?’ she noted. ‘You sent a bird to Jesco, but not to me. Lucky I was close by, hmm?’ She patted his arm slyly. ‘Don’t you miss us, Raythe?’
‘Not really,’ he said without thinking, then cursed himself for his bluntness.
Tami winced. ‘I’m crushed.’
‘Sorry, that came out worse than it was meant. But life goes on.’ He met her gaze. ‘I’m glad to have a sympathetic ear inside Rhamp’s pavilion. I trust he treats you well?’
She gazed across the camp to where the big mercenary was drinking with his bearded henchmen, shaggy giants like the trollochs of Norgan legend. ‘Oh, you know. It’s not love, but he keeps my arse warm at night and he doesn’t call me “Mirella” in the heat of passion.’
This time it was Raythe who winced. ‘Aye, well . . .’
‘Let’s keep to business, shall we?’ Tami smiled lazily as she withdrew her hand from his arm. ‘It’s a shame you don’t dance any more, though. You used to be good.’
He swallowed an old ache as he watched her sashaying away, remembering how they’d sparked before it all went wrong, just before Colfar’s rebellion collapsed into anarchy. And that took him back to Mirella, and the trail of destruction he’d left behind ever since he lost her.
Dear Gerda, let this expedition give me what I need to put it all right . . .
*
Wood-smoke was rising sluggishly in the cold air, while the sea crashed against the rocks below the cliff. The noise and smells dragged Zarelda back to wakefulness and she rolled over, smiling.
It was not quite morning and her father was still wrapped in blankets and snoring softly under the wagon. She rubbed grit from her eyes and peered out to see the horses grazing on the dew-laden grass. Steam was rising from their nostrils in the bitterly cold air and she could barely feel her toes.
But last night she’d actually danced – and mostly with sweet, handsome Banno Rhamp.
Is he too old for me? she wondered. He was twenty, five years older than her, which felt like an enormous gap – but when he’d taken her hands in the dance and their eyes met as he spun her round and round, it seemed like no barrier at all.
I’m nearly sixteen, she reminded herself. Most girls are married by then.
Not that marriage was something she wanted right now, not with the imminent awakening of her praxis, but she was sick of the solitary life she and her father lived. Father worried too much, and maybe that was sensible in an imperial-held village, but out here everyone was on the same side, weren’t they? And I’ve missed out on so much.
Feeling wide awake, she pulled on her socks and boots, then clambered down and crept through the maze of wagons for the women’s trench. After peeing, she scurried to the cliff, rubbing her forearms, trying to generate a little bit of heat.
Banno had said he’d be on watch in the morning – and there he was, his handsome face creasing into a grin as he caught sight of her. He quickly shed his heavy fur-lined leather cloak and draped it over her shoulders, a courtly gesture that sent a thrill through her.
‘That was fun, last night,’ she told him shyly. She’d felt so free and daring for once, like a normal girl.
‘It was. Best night of the journey. It feels like we’re becoming a real community at last.’
‘Well, it’s your father’s people who are mostly keeping to themselves,’ she pointed out.
‘I know,’ he confessed. ‘The truth is, some of our soldiers aren’t exactly civilised. Just keeping them from committing hanging offences is hard enough – believe me, Pa’s cracking skulls every night trying to keep them in line.’
She laughed. ‘That I can believe.’ She’d been very conscious last night that while Banno and most of the villagers were gentlemanly, many of the knight’s men just stared at her with blank hunger. ‘Some of those hunters are just as bad,’ she said, trying to even up the conversation. ‘Vidar and Foaley really have to push to keep them in line too. But last night was different. It felt good to be together.’
The sun was coming up now and she admired the way it basted his face in rose-gold light. He looked like a young pagan god of dancing and music. ‘What do you think about this whole journey?’ she asked.
He grinned. ‘What do you think?’
‘That my father’s insane,’ she exclaimed. ‘He thinks he can go back to Otravia and drive out all the Bolgravs and that Mother will just collapse back into his arms. He thinks everything can be like it was before.’
‘And you don’t?’
‘Mother married a Mandaryke,’ she admitted. ‘Nothing can ever be right again.’
‘She married one of them?’ He gave a low whistle.
‘I guess it was that or die. Father always says she’s fighting from the inside.’
‘I’m sure she is.’
‘I miss her every day. It’s been four years of fighting or hiding and pretending to be nobodies.’ She blinked away tears crossly.
‘Then before this, you were somebodies?’ he asked curiously.
‘We were Vyres,’ she harrumphed. ‘Grandfather was in the Assembly and Father was going to stand at the next elections – so yes, we were somebodies.’ She realised how boastful she sounded, so she asked, ‘What about your family?’
‘Well, we’re not rich, but House Rhamp is an old line in Pelaria,’ Banno replied. ‘We fought when Bolgravia invaded, but our cavalry got shot up and our footmen broke and ran. I lost two of my brothers that day. We fell back, hired more men and Father took those of us who were left into Vassland, but the other captains turned their coats and we barely escaped. We turned ourselves into a mercenary company and we’ve been guarding wagons and keeps for petty barons since then. Father thinks this is our last big chance for freedom.’
‘I’m sorry for your losses,’ she said formally, adding, ‘It’s good that you still have brothers.’
‘Aye, that’s true, but there’s a Bolgravian governor living in my family’s castle in north Pelaria: they’ve stolen everything of value and quadrupled taxes.’ He glared out to sea. ‘One day I’m going to kill every damned Bolgrav in Pelaria, or die trying.’
Why do boys always say things like that? There will always be more Bolgravs – isn’t it better to be alive?
But she didn’t want him to think her weak, so she nodded emphatically.
They fell silent until Banno flashed his cheeky grin and asked, ‘So, do you own any skirts?’
She snorted and flicked a pebble at him. ‘One or two, but they’re hopeless for riding and doing anything practical. And anyway, I’m going to be a sorceress, so soon I’ll be wearing apprentice robes.’
He gave a low whistle. ‘You’ll be well above me, then,’ he said wistfully. ‘You’ll be needing servants and all, to do your c
ooking and chores.’
‘Ha! Chance would be a fine thing. I’ve had to be mother, daughter, maid and every other bloody thing ever since we left Otravia,’ she grumbled, before realising she’d sworn. She defiantly doubled down. ‘And that’s not going to damned well change any time soon, is it?’
‘I reckon Mater Varahana will want you for the convents,’ Banno said, grinning. ‘Quiet, pious girl like you.’
They both burst out laughing at the thought.
Then her father’s voice cracked out from the edge of the camp. ‘Zar, get the horses fed and the breakfast fire underway. Banno, get back to your post.’
She exchanged an unrepentant look with her new friend and scampered away, glancing at her father as she passed and trying to assess if he really was cross.
Not really, she decided. Maybe a little. She went to tease him when the world wobbled and in a slow blur, she tumbled into oblivion . . .
*
Kemara leaned over her cooking fire, holding the handle of a black-iron pan in which cured sausage sizzled. Her stomach moaned as she inhaled the aroma. Such luxuries would begin running low soon and then what?
Will we all turn into ferali, eating raw meat with fingers and teeth?
She got lost in that thought as she ate, drifting through her worries until she heard movement and looked up to find Raythe Vyre staring down at her, an anxious look on his face.
‘What is it?’ she demanded, more brusquely than intended, but she hated being surprised and his penetrating eyes always unsettled her. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s Zar – I think she’s manifesting.’
She grimaced, remembering her own experience. ‘I suppose you need someone who does actually know what they’re doing when it comes to medicine,’ she remarked caustically, but he didn’t even notice the sarcasm.
‘Yes, indeed – please?’