Black Sun Light My Way

by Spurrier, Jo

  She could see what had happened now — there was only one explanation. She had been betrayed. She’d been lied to, misled and used, strung along like a foolish girl with a crush. Aleksar must have been planning this for months, spying on her all the while. Oh, how he must have laughed while she did all she could to protect him from discovery, at the risk of her career, her position and her life.

  All for the sake of a barbarian slave, Delphine thought. By the Good Goddess herself, I must be the biggest fool in creation. This disaster was her own doing — it was she who’d brought Aleksar to Vasant’s last cache, and by all the hells, it was she who’d plucked the girl-mage out of the slave-masters’ hands! Not to mention missed her Corrupted talent. That wretched toad of a man had played her like a flute … She’d acted with compassion and mercy, taking pity on the poor enslaved barbarians, and how had they repaid her? After all she had done for him, Aleksar had coldly and deliberately used her.

  When tears stung her eyes and tightened her throat, Delphine swallowed hard and furiously blinked them back. She would not cry. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. With teeth clenched, she clamped her hands into fists within her sleeves. Anger would serve her better now than tears. Why should she feel ashamed?

  Delphine stiffened as she heard footsteps approaching outside. ‘Rhia?’ a dark and familiar voice called from beyond the tent flaps.

  ‘You can come in, Isidro,’ Rhia called back.

  When he stooped to enter, Delphine looked away in a flush of fury. How could she have trusted this man? How could she ever have dreamt that they might one day make a life together in Akhara? Delphine felt utterly disgusted with herself, and with him.

  ‘Is she hurt?’ he asked.

  ‘Only cuts and bruises, although I will want to check that lump on her head for the next few days.’

  ‘Good,’ her former slave said. ‘Thank you, Rhia.’

  As the woman slipped out of the tent Delphine forced herself to look at him. He was weary, with shadowy circles under his eyes and a bruise darkening on his jaw. His cheeks were flushed, just as they always were after they’d been working long hours on short sleep. In the morning he would be feverish.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself,’ she snapped. ‘You wretched piece of barbarian scum, you stinking weasel!’

  She wanted to see him bristle, but instead he smiled faintly and crouched so they were once again eye to eye. ‘Proud of myself?’ he said. ‘As a matter of fact, I am. I’ve freed myself, I’ve freed Mira, who by the way is my brother’s woman, along with all the other prisoners down here. In the next few days I expect the general to make a peace-offering to our allies of the women and children held as slaves, as well as beginning negotiations of terms to free the men. Because of your work I’ve been able to bring the woman I love right to the heart of Demon’s Spire and give her access to everything the Last Great Mage set aside for our future. So yes, you could say I’m very well pleased with what you helped me bring about.’

  ‘Wipe that smug look off your face, you ass! Just how long have you been planning this?’

  ‘From the moment I found out what you were looking for.’

  Delphine looked down her nose at him. ‘I don’t believe you pulled this off all on your own. You may have the wits, but not the power. So who was it? Not that gawky black-haired crow of a mage. You do know what she is, don’t you?’

  He watched her steadily, his left hand resting open on his knee, his right arm still cradled in a sling across his chest. Delphine remembered his grunt of pain when she drove her elbow between the splints, and permitted herself a smile.

  ‘She’s a Sympath,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Delphine said. ‘She’s a Corrupted Sympath. Oh, I recall all those questions you asked me, Aleksar, but nothing I told you then applies to her. That little chit is rotten to the core, ruined like meat left out in the sun. She’s halfway to being a Blood-Mage.’

  He cocked his head as he watched her, as though studying some curious insect. Delphine wanted nothing so much as to slap that look off his face.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ he said, quite calmly.

  ‘You’d like to believe that, wouldn’t you? But you know it’s the truth, Aleksar. That ghost woman in the chamber said the same thing, and I know you heard it. Your sweetheart has power, I’ll grant you, but she doesn’t know the first thing about using it, does she? I could tell that much at a glance. So …’ Delphine narrowed her eyes. ‘Neither of you are accomplished enough to fuel a strike like this. Who does that leave, then? There are only two other mages of note in this Gods-forsaken land …’ Delphine peered more closely at his face, and laughed. ‘Oh by the Good Goddess, don’t tell me — you joined forces with one of the Blood-Mages? The ones who raped and tortured you?’

  ‘Delphine,’ he said, so sharply that she knew her barb had struck, and she smiled again.

  He drew a breath, visibly steadying himself. ‘What exactly do you expect to accomplish by baiting me?’

  ‘Only the satisfaction of making you squirm like the worm you are,’ Delphine said.

  He shrugged. ‘If that’s what it takes for you to accept your situation —’

  ‘Oh, I am well aware of my situation,’ Delphine said. ‘It’s you who are deluded. You poor fool, you’d have been better off staying my servant — at least then you had a chance of earning your freedom, not to mention growing old. If you insist on pinning all your hopes on that wretched girl, your future is destined to be painful and short. Now let me guess, you’re bedding her, aren’t you? Does she feed off the pain in your arm? Why do you think she chose a weak and crippled man instead of some strapping young warrior, hmm? Answer me that.’

  Aleksar — he had another name, but she refused to acknowledge it — closed his eyes. ‘Delphine, hold your wretched tongue.’

  ‘You will address me as madame!’ she thundered.

  ‘No. You’re my prisoner, and I’ll call you what I like. You’re lucky I’m willing to pay you the courtesy of using your own name instead of assigning you another. Now, let me explain, Delphine, exactly what we’re facing here. Our foreign king cares far more for his mother’s people than the northern clans — he couldn’t care less if the Akharian legions rounded up every Ricalani and marched them off to Akhara — he’d quite happily let us rot. The only reason the crown is lending us any help at all is because Sierra is here, and Severian wants her back. She is quite possibly the most powerful mage born to Ricalan since Vasant walked the earth. The king’s pet Blood-Mage, Kell, uses her to generate power, and he’s sent his apprentice, Rasten, that’s the one who did this,’ he held up his splinted right arm, ‘to bring her back.

  ‘Sierra is our only hope of driving the invaders off our lands and defending our people from slavery. She’s untrained — Kell made sure she couldn’t use her power against him. This is where you come in, Delphine — you are to train her in mage-craft.’

  Delphine folded her arms across her chest. ‘So that’s what you want from me, is it?’ She shrugged. ‘Why not? It means she’ll kill you all the faster, but I see no problem with that.’

  His forehead twitched as he suppressed a frown. He’d expected more of a fight, and now she had him on the back foot. ‘She’s untrained,’ he said, ‘but she’s not foolish. If you think you can trick her into doing us harm …’

  Delphine heaved a sigh. ‘You really have no idea what you’ve got yourself into, do you, you poor foolish boy? I don’t need to trick her: she’ll destroy you all by herself. Your Blood-Mage had a hold of her, did he, before she hid herself among the slaves? How long was she with him?’

  ‘Long enough to know she despises him and all his kind.’

  Delphine waved the words away with a flick of her hand. ‘Doesn’t matter. I’ve told you about Sympaths, you dolt. Have you forgotten it all? A Sympath taps into the life-force of the people they feed from. Feeding from pleasure is a safe path, because when the participants are sated, the connection fades. But pain can
be unceasing — a Corrupted Sympath will never stop feeding until the subject is dead. The more you feed a Sympath the stronger they grow. If she is fed on pain and suffering, her power will be a glutton by now, always craving more, always driving her to feed it. It’s a wild thing, and it’ll burn through you all and leave nothing but ash. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t mean to do it: she won’t be able to stop herself. Tell me, has she started killing people yet? Has she progressed to draining people of their life-force? The first sign it’s got away from her will be when she starts destroying enchantments, but once she moves on to people, she’ll never go back.’

  ‘If that’s the case, you’ll have to find a way to stop it,’ Isidro said. ‘You’re not leaving here until she’s trained.’

  ‘Or until she blows these wretched enchantments,’ Delphine said, holding up the ugly bracelets wired around her wrists. ‘The moment these bonds are broken, I’ll be gone and you can rot down here in the grave you’ve made for yourself. Now, since you’re vowed and determined to hasten your own end, I see no reason to delay. If it’s lessons you want, lessons you shall have. When do we begin?’

  He was still watching her steadily through narrowed eyes. ‘Later,’ he said. ‘You’ve taken a blow to the head and it’s made you erratic. You’ll stay in here until I summon you, Delphine. Try to leave and I’ll have you chained, is that understood?’ He rose then, and turned to leave.

  ‘I should have let you kill yourself!’ Delphine hurled after him as he ducked back through the tent-flap. Then, when she was alone, the long-threatening tears began to spill. ‘Rot in hell, you son of a bitch,’ she said, and then, because she was feeling rather unwell, she lay down on the ground cloth were she sat, and closed her eyes. While she willed the world to stop spinning around her, Delphine began to plot her revenge.

  ‘Isidro!’

  Cam hailed him almost the moment he left the tent. Isidro was feeling utterly wretched, but the sight of his brother jogging towards him through the gloom was enough to cheer him, at least for the moment.

  Then he noticed just how dim and oppressive the gloom had become. Cam held one of the Akharian lanterns, glowing as faintly as the coal on the wick of a snuffed candle.

  ‘How’s your prisoner?’ Cam asked him.

  Isidro shook his head. ‘Don’t ask. The lights are fading, then? I should have realised that would happen.’

  ‘Mira’s sent to Dremman to beg for supplies, but they won’t be here for a few days, at least. We didn’t expect to find anything like this down here,’ Cam said, studying the lantern. ‘But I hate to think how smoky this chamber is going to get if we rely on oil and wood. Sirri told me you’ve … well, that you’re gaining some powers. Can you get these things to work again?’

  Isidro took it from him. ‘Might be better to ask her …’

  ‘I did. She killed the first one the moment she touched it, and then refused to go near the rest.’

  Isidro pressed his lips together, swallowing a curse. Delphine’s just trying to play us, he told himself. Sympaths are rare enough in the empire, Corrupted ones even more so. This is conjecture, nothing more. Besides, Sierra had destroyed enchantments before — she’d blasted the stone she’d used to contact Cam; and Rasten, their only other authority on mage-craft, hadn’t seemed at all concerned by the fact.

  But why would Rasten care? What would he do if he thought Sierra was endangering us all? Isidro couldn’t believe he would lift one finger to prevent it.

  His head hurt. Blood was throbbing through his skull and behind his eyes, and with a sigh Isidro rubbed his face on his sleeve. He was too weary to deal with this now. Delphine had to be wrong. He would make her wrong. He had no other choice. Sierra was their only hope. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Isidro said, and Cam hooked his thumbs into his belt.

  ‘Now about this place the old mages built — I’ve been hearing some strange tales. Is it as good as you hoped?’

  Isidro had forgotten that all Cam had seen of the installation was what he’d glimpsed on the way to help him and Delphine. ‘It’s … it’s incredible. Come on, I’ll show you. You have to see it for yourself,’ he said, turning towards the cascade.

  Cam let him go ahead, and watched as he picked his way across the stones. ‘Sirri told me the Akharians were treating you well. Hearing it and seeing it are two different things, I suppose.’

  It took Isidro a moment to remember that the last time Cam had seen him he’d been too weak to stand. ‘I was lucky enough to have something of value to them, that’s all.’

  ‘And clever enough to make yourself useful …’ Cam said.

  A couple of freed slaves had been posted atop the platform to prevent people from wandering into the installation and its irreplaceable library, but they seemed to be watching the passage more closely than the open cavern. Isidro didn’t like the idea of restricting access to the wonders within, but after the abuse that had been shouted at Sierra, they couldn’t risk sabotage. Most of the former slaves were as frightened of mage-craft as ever, and so more likely to destroy than realise the benefit of Vasant’s legacy.

  There were a few spots of blood on the floor, left behind by those who had been injured in the scuffle, but other than that the chamber was unchanged. Even Delphine’s coat was still on the wall where Sierra had hung it the day before.

  In the main chamber, Cam paid no attention to the blank wall in which Nirveli had appeared. He cast a cursory glance around the room before peering into the library, giving a low whistle at the sheer number of books collected there. ‘Oh, this is perfect — this is exactly what we need …’

  Isidro went straight to the wall and pressed his palm against the stone. ‘Nirveli? Are you there?’

  Hearing him speak, Cam came back out of the chamber. ‘Um, Issey? Who are you talking to?’

  ‘Nirveli?’ Isidro said again, and then glanced over his shoulder.

  Cam tried to mask a troubled expression, but Isidro knew him well enough to read that his brother was suddenly afraid he’d gone mad.

  Isidro took his hand from the wall, and a glowing impression of it remained, made up of hundreds of points of light. After a moment the handprint broke up and the lights began to swirl through the stone before settling once again into the outline of a sleeping woman, wrapped in a mound of blankets.

  ‘Nirveli?’ Isidro tried once more. ‘Can you hear me?’

  The woman stirred and yawned, and Cam recoiled with a curse. ‘What in the Fires Below —?’

  Nirveli lifted her head with a scowl. ‘What? Why are you shouting at me? Who are you?’

  With a flick of his hand Isidro signalled Cam to be quiet. ‘Nirveli, it’s Isidro. Do you remember me? We spoke yesterday.’

  ‘Oh …’ she said, rubbing her eyes. ‘Oh, I … I do remember you. How long have you been here?’

  ‘Just a day,’ Isidro said. ‘Do you sleep when there’s no one here to talk to you?’

  ‘I always sleep,’ Nirveli said. ‘I think I’d go mad if I didn’t. I dream a lot. Are you sure I’m not just dreaming you?’

  Isidro glanced back at Cam. ‘She always seems a little confused.’

  ‘Isidro, she’s living inside a rock. That’s enough to confuse anyone — I know it confuses the daylights out of me.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ Nirveli asked, raising her eyes to Cam. ‘He looks Mesentreian.’

  ‘He does, but he’s Ricalani really,’ Isidro said. ‘He’s my foster-brother.’

  ‘Ah. What about the others, those two women — the snooty Akharian and the Sympath? Are they real too, or did I dream them?’

  ‘They’re real,’ Isidro said.

  ‘Issey, what in the Black Sun’s name is this?’ Cam asked.

  ‘She was one of Vasant’s people,’ Isidro said. ‘Something happened … there was an accident, I think —’

  ‘No accident,’ Nirveli said. ‘Leandra’s men tried to kill me!’ Hesitantly, she touched her chest between her breasts. ‘They did kill me …’
<
br />   Cam took a step back, shaking his head. ‘Issey, can we get out of here? Just for a moment.’ Without waiting for a reply he started for the entrance.

  Isidro took a step after him and then turned to Nirveli.

  She flapped a hand, waving at him to go. ‘That happens a lot when people first meet me. Go and calm him down.’

  ‘I’ll be back,’ Isidro promised her.

  In the entrance hall, Cam was leaning against the stone, his face a pallid white. ‘Issey … What in the Black Sun’s name did they do?’

  ‘She’s not dangerous, Cam.’

  ‘Hard to see how she could be, trapped inside a Gods-forsaken stone. Was she … was she truly a person once, like us?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘And when she died, they just … locked her in there? By all the Gods, who would do such a thing, keeping her enslaved down here alone for all eternity? Can you imagine it? It must be like being buried alive, only without the release of actually dying. What sort of man was this Last Great Mage, to do something like that?’

  ‘I … I don’t know,’ Isidro said. ‘But she was his lover, I think, and she was dying. I doubt he truly meant her any harm: he was hardly in a state to consider it clearly.’

  Cam raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘So he thought it would be better to imprison her forever, just so he wouldn’t have to watch her die? Issey, I was beginning to think the evils of the old mages were just tales made up by the victors, but this …’ He shuddered. ‘I never imagined they could do something like this.’

  ‘Well,’ Isidro began, nonplussed. He hadn’t seen it that way, but Cam was right. It was a kind of living death, when everyone she had known and loved had died and left her alone for a century. ‘It’s a harsh fate, but it is what it is, and we need her, Cam. There’s so much she can teach us … I thought you should see her for yourself,’ Isidro said.

  ‘Oh, and I see why — I’d never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,’ Cam said. ‘I imagine you and Sirri will be spending a fair bit of time here. Well, at least you won’t have to worry about people coming here to gawk and stare. Once word gets around of the ghost in there we probably won’t even need the guards on the door.’