by C F Welburn
“Crimes?”
But Finster never got an answer. Without warning, the lead guard stepped forward and slid his sword through the ashen’s stomach. Finster looked down dumbly, as if disbelieving what had befallen. As the blade was removed, followed by a gush of red, he sank to his knees. Instantly the three remaining ashen had their swords in hand, facing the guards.
“Explain yourselves!” Balagir barked.
“I suppose you deserve that before you join him.” Balagir was amazed at the guard’s brazenness before realising they were surrounded. Among the crowd he picked out a dozen more green shirts—a shipload of Silione guards.
“You surely know why your kind are no longer tolerated on Silione?”
Balagir shrugged.
The guard snorted. “Play the fool then, it will do you no good. The assault on our house, the murder of the Thella Barrowhawk by means most foul, is known across the channel. Dark magic of the ashen kind.”
“I had heard rumour of such a thing, but I hardly—”
“Your companion here, Finster, was the perpetrator. We’ve been seeking him for months. Alive or dead was the order, but we would not chance his escape again. We know your tricks. Your beguiling fires. No! This ends here.”
Something tickled Balagir’s memory. The name he had given back then to Barrowhawk had been Finster’s, their feud having been bitter and recent at the time. He looked down at the spreading puddle of blood. Maybe he deserved this. He had betrayed Balagir more than once; Mailen the succubus, the false amulet, the cutthroats in Wormford, and his mutiny on the Spite Spear. He would likely have done so again. An ironic comeuppance, if inconvenient. Finster’s hand twitched, and upon it a blue tear stone ring glistened. What that sentimentality signified may have surprised Balagir, had he not been at the tip of a blade.
“And what of us?” Balagir asked. “Must we be judged by this man’s actions? Tarred with the same brush?”
“Any other ashen were to be brought back to Silione too, in shackles. Since we are no longer free to return home, you shall be judged here.”
Sensing there was no way out of this, Balagir let a menacing look leak from his eyes.
“It’s you who have committed a crime, men of Silione. Now, desist before you rue this day.”
“You’re in no position to parley. Lay down your arms.”
It was in that moment Finster truly died, his body shrivelling up to nothing but ash, his smoke swirling into the three ashen. The guards gasped and stepped back.
Balagir held Reaver aloft. The relic blade, large and imposing, became tickled with blue fingers. Denge’s corpse-like face was taut, Kolak’s hooked mouth grim.
With a sweeping arc, Balagir cleared a circle about them, not making contact with the guards, but sending out tongues of electricity to snap and crackle up their arms and down their legs so their weapons clanged to the ground even as they performed ridiculous jigs.
Onlookers yelped and backed away until the square was deserted save for the three ashen and fifteen green-clad men.
Once more Balagir spun Reaver, sending another ripple of burning, kicking jolts through knee joints and up spines to rattle craniums and bite tongues. The large guard wanted to attack; fury was stark in his eyes. But from his scalp, beneath his helm, small tendrils of smoke curled as though he’d been struck by lightning. With something between snarl and whimper, he gave the signal for his men to retreat. Balagir sent one more wave to quell any resistance, and those nearest hopped back as blue snakes struck up at them from the earth.
“Any further attempt upon the ashen shall be revisited tenfold upon the isle of Silione. Is this understood?”
The guard did not, or could not, speak. But his shaken nod conveyed his comprehension.
With more than enough space, the ashen backed towards the southern gate, leaving nothing but a small grey pile that had once borne the name Finster on the deserted flagstones.
Jeers did at last begin to rise in the square once they were out of view. The settlers were united against them now. Life as an ashen would become more difficult in the lowlands; if such life were there to be had.
Just three now, they made it to the fire unchallenged.
“To Eskareth then,” Balagir said. “Let us hope we’re not too late.”
They weren’t. Not yet.
The rift carried them many leagues south, emerging in the Valelands on what was a pleasantly warm afternoon.
Relieved, he stepped back to appraise the hub. The fire was dwindling, the piper’s tune faint; Jakan himself was almost transparent.
“What now?” Denge asked.
“Now we prepare. See how the flames die. It will not be long.”
“We need more ashen,” Kolak said, as though that might make the slightest bit of difference.
“We cannot risk travelling again. If the way closes, we will not get back in time.”
“Then let us check Eskareth. Did not Raf Fade say he was coming this way?”
“Yes, with the court.”
“Then Dunn Elohim may be here? And your friend the medic?” Kolak asked.
“The lych?” Denge murmured unsurely.
Balagir shrugged. “He’s helped us before. Also, the relics may be within distance. I dare not stray from the fire. We cannot leave it unguarded. I must be here when it fails.” All eyes fell on Jakan, faint as mist now, the tune barely a whisper over the steady Valeland winds. “So be it. Kolak, ride east, see if the relics will come. Denge, go to the city, bring Fade and the lych; keep the settlers out of it.”
Balagir summoned North. He half imagined Raf Isil being plunged into a ravine as the mount vanished from beneath him, but Kolak’s need was greater.
“First we should spend our smoke,” Balagir urged, looking into the flames. “This may be the last chance. Gain as much strength as you can.”
Grimly they acted upon his advice.
First Denge, then Kolak offered up what smoke they had about them. Then, when they were within the trance, Balagir approached Jakan and met his sorrowful eyes.
“You’ve never answered, I do not expect so now. But I will say this: If there’s a part of you still cognisant, then aid us now.” The spirit dhaki played on, unheeding. Did he know he had been betrayed? That his defective guardians had failed in their duties? It no longer seemed to matter.
Ruefully, Balagir shook his head, and for the last time paid his smoke. His belt was clear now, all oaths honoured; odd to have no burdens. But he was ready. Whatever the outcome, there was nowhere else to go from here.
He closed his eyes as the red wave engulfed him.
XXXIII
THE EMBER AND THE ASH
When he came to, the others had already departed. He stretched, feeling a strength and energy previously unknown. He felt a coil in his legs, a swiftness of mind, a hunger for blood and smoke.
The fire crackled on quietly, flames receding inward leaving a grey circumference of ash that widened as he watched.
Anxiously he paced, looking to the horizon in both directions, kicking the ground and pacing some more.
Denge was the first to return, having managed to secure both Raf Fade and the lych. The ostentatiously clad idris looked ill, and no amount of self-professed acting skills could mask the fear in his eyes.
The lych too seemed uneasy. Still in his medic’s guise and not being ashen, he seemed ludicrously out of place. But then, weren’t they all? His smile was humourless; the haunted look in his eyes had never left him since his deeds in the battle. The journey had not been without its toll, and every mile left its mark.
The fact that the lych was this close to the fire was unsettling in itself. For the first time he looked to where the fading dhaki lingered, and a bleakness came over him.
When the fire had shrunk to a shadow of its former self, Kolak returned, despondent and alone.
“They would not come?” Balagir guessed.
Kolak shook his head. “They weren’t there.” Balagir said nothing
and returned his gaze to the fire. Then they had gone to avenge Tye; he doubted he would see them again.
“Have we a plan?” Kolak asked.
Balagir shrugged and pulled Ihnoban’s wand from his pouch.
“You will use it to seal the fire?”
“It worked before,” he said, though with little enthusiasm. Everyone knew it was a desperate hope. But what other option remained? He was right, it had worked before. And had worked for centuries for the hiilg. But he knew something they didn’t. The betrayer was in their midst. The one to which they were all so intricately bound.
He glanced to where the kalaqai hung expectantly by the fire, as though awaiting a guest at her door. She had kindled for him before, but now he knew why. Would she aid him again when her plan was almost fulfilled? When her long-sought freedom was so near? He feared not.
“We must be prepared to fight should the wand fail,” he said austerely. Nobody spoke. Words were redundant in the face of such hopelessness. Fight an immortal dhaki? How? Worse, face a kraelyn? Laughable. As well as challenge a god with a twig. Yet it was also this resignation that numbed their dread. As one who elects to leap from a flaming building rather than burn, so too must they go into this, unwavering.
The fire popped and crackled, and they glumly noted more exposed ash. Where once it would have warmed a dozen ashen, it was now barely large enough to roast fowl.
They waited, and as day faded to night, ever feebler did the fire become. When the sun rose once more, it was but a faint shimmering of heat.
None of them had slept, but neither had they spoken a great deal. What was there left to say? Sure, they could reminisce on times they’d shared, but many of those had been toilsome, and now, faced with this end, they had lost any sense of triumph they might once have gifted. Balagir found his mind drifting to places he had been, people he had known. How would the outcome affect them? Would this be the end of everything? Was existence at stake? To be destroyed was to leave a trace, dust, whispers, scars, echoes. To be erased…
He thought of those in Ozgar now, oblivious. The throngs in the morning markets concerned only with the price of fish; or those just over the hill in Eskareth. He thought of Imram buried in a book, lost in a river of words; of Kiela and Ginike, unlikely lovers, not destined to amount to much. And then of his own heart, or lack thereof. Of Freya and Roje beginning new lives. And then of the dead. The pile of ash left on the streets of Kasker, the panic in Igmar’s face, Tye boiled away and the other relics gone to join him. Too many. Too many faces to remember. And now they were but four. Four ashen, that was; the lych did not count. A significant number. The Good Company will prevail, he had told Igmar. The last words which had given him hope.
He looked to the weary jaegir, the flamboyant idris, and the death-faced man. The Good Company may have seen better times, but he was at the helm now, and this was as good as it was ever likely to be.
The fire popped, making them flinch.
“This is it,” he said, rising. The others followed suit, and as one they watched the last flame flicker and die, releasing a tiny wisp of smoke up into the cool morning air.
The day suddenly felt darker. A black hole grew and gaped where once the fire had been, and from it clambered an unsettling form. The dhaki knelt, then stood, looking around in silence. His eyes fell upon the ashen.
He was as tall as his apprentice, standing ten feet before even those twisted antlers began. His eyes were piercing slits, and his bovine nostrils flared with unreadable emotion. He was the colour of charcoal from horn to hoof, and in his sinewy hand was a staff as tall as he made of simple black wood, with a mounted black orb.
Any delusions of heroism fled the ashen then. Terror took hold.
The creature spoke, rasping words in a voice long unused, in a tongue unheard by man. But Era understood, and through their link, Balagir gleaned a hint of the mind which formed them. Enough to despair. For the disordered, feverish thoughts of the great master were not wise as he had imagined, but base and mad. Whatever Kaliga had once been when he and Jakan were alive was gone. No trace remained, no reason, no logic—only pure obsession for vengeance. Long years of imprisonment had erased any semblance of sophistication.
He dismissed the ashen as a man might a fly, but he paused and made a shrill noise when he looked upon the kalaqai. Balagir felt his skin prickle; a nauseating sensation which brought both sweats and shivers closed over his face like a clammy hand.
Kaliga tapped his staff on the ground, and the black orb shone with darkness. The black light was just the contradiction he had feared from the void; antimatter, the opposite of being. Like a hole in the world, the staff began to suck the colour and light, channelling it through the orb, down into the cold fire, where the ashes rose and fell like a disturbed black puddle.
The sun dims, the grass fades to grey. He imagines briefly those in the streets of Eskareth stopping, dropping their wares, looking aghast at the heavens. The kalaqai offers herself to the staff, pinioned by it in the air; lets the green colour drain clear. Balagir clutches his chest, sinks to knees. The wand is like a useless stick, forgotten on the ground beneath him. How pitiful the end. How weak to go out without a fight. And yet how easy. No consequences. No aftermath. Nothing. If the kalaqai was giving up, then why should not he? He’d been a servant too, after all.
The land is a grey place now, the morning sky as dusk. He feels rather than thinks the other fires flickering, growing dim as the kalaqai, ember of all, is utterly extinguished.
Prostrate now, numb. Yet he is aware of dim cries, twists his head to follow.
Shapes. Three of them moving. The other ashen, he realises. Look at them attack the dhaki. What futility.
Yet it distracts Kaliga, enough for his staff to dim.
The dead-faced one, Denge, he thinks, gets too close. An antler descends, takes him through the jowl. Blood flows, just as fleeting as the light.
The jaegir, Kolak, goes down, stamped, trampled, and broken beneath those sharp hooves. There was not even a cry. Who is left? A pale idris in a grey cape, reduced to a puppet, strewn flimsily over the ridge and down the grey grass bank.
He should feel sorrow, yet feels nothing.
But his hand moves. He sees the kalaqai has been momentarily released; enough for him to act. He draws Reaver, heavy as a tree trunk, and with a roar that comes from far away, he hurls it, spinning, flashing towards the dhaki.
It connects with a brittle sound. It is tangled in one of the antlers; has broken the tip off. But no flesh has been pierced. No old blood spilt.
The dhaki looks at what has been done. The insolence! He turns upon Balagir, the submissive kalaqai no longer his focus, and with a bellow he directs the force of his staff upon the helpless wretch. Balagir feels the brunt of it. Something which has blotted the sun, aimed directly at him. Light and life are sucked out with such ease, slurped like the dregs of a tankard. He feels nothing. He is gone, an empty shell, a vacant vessel.
But something occurs that not even the dhaki has foreseen. Siphoning all hue from the ashen, he draws all. Including Balagir’s pouch and the prison of starlight he has carried since Iylleth.
Kaliga is not prepared for this. Not bolstered to deal with such an influx. Unleashed constellations trail from the eye, shattering the orb on his staff with such impact that his body spins thrice before hitting the ground.
Balagir blinks. He is alive. It is not over. He lifts his head to see the dhaki sprawled before him; not dead, but dying.
He pulls himself first to one knee, then two, and shakily stands so that the world lilts and spins.
A grim laughter rises from Kaliga’s mouth, a terrible sound that would make grown men weep. He staggers over, retrieves his sword, and raises it. But a look in the dhaki’s eyes gives him pause. A look of triumph.
A movement from the ashes draws his gaze. A black tentacle is snaking out. The kraelyn, he thinks in nightmarish detachment. The horror is so great it has bypassed fear. He is insensate.
He turns back to the dhaki and finishes the job. Cold ash, not blood, splatters and stings his face.
He wipes his eyes and turns back to the kraelyn, Ceniza. Feels faint at the sight. Era is there, almost within reach. He screams at her to return. She pays no heed, but contrarily floats into the tentacle’s reach, as doomed as a moth towards a flame.
The world is black now. The lights have gone out. The cosmos he feels collapsing. The tentacle has the ember, coils about it, draws it towards the void, which is folding in, swallowing itself.
But a white shape moves. A cloak. Almost like a medic’s. What a fanciful notion.
He struggles to comprehend. And then suddenly, as a dog is jerked back on its leash, Era is plucked from the snaking grip, joining the wand, growing bright.
As the world shrinks to the size of a keyhole, he spies one last visage.
A silhouette of a man, framed in red, touching the wand to the void.
Then red.
Then black.
XXXIII.i
REMEMBERANCE
North moved steadily beneath him along a rocky trail. The rhythm of the hooves had almost lulled him to sleep, but the shifting sunlight through the eaves brought him back.
It was past noon now. He was almost there.
Somewhere off to his right a bird cried out shrilly. He didn’t turn, just looked ahead, focussed.
The entire journey had passed this way. A grim determination growing more resolute with each mile. A resignation that pushed aside feeling and left scant space for reason.
Ever since that day he has felt like this. That day when the world ended and began again. There were still things he could not grasp, dark patches in his memory, unsolved enigmas, but he knew enough to draw his own conclusions.
They had won. Or at least, they had not lost. He was not sure what the difference was, but knew it was significant.