Black Sun Light My Way

by Spurrier, Jo

  ‘Your majesty, you must be joking,’ Kell said. ‘After all we have gone through to get the wretched girl, you can’t suggest we kill her now —’

  ‘I am suggesting no such thing,’ Valeria said. ‘I speak of revenge, not execution. A nice public display ought to do the trick, and perhaps a lottery so the men can take their own part in her punishment.’

  Kell cocked his head, puzzled, but Rasten felt he had an inkling of what the queen had in mind. Some small movement must have given him away, for the queen turned to him with a tight little smile. ‘Your apprentice understands me, I think.’

  Kell swung around with a vicious glint in his eye. ‘Boy?’

  ‘No one likes a witch, lord magister,’ Valeria said. ‘It is public knowledge that Rasten was unable to bring her back against her will, just as they know that you are treating her with caution now. Lord magister, the men do not believe that you have absolute control of her, this creature you intend to use to drive back the Akharian legions. Therefore, you must demonstrate that you do own her, every inch of her, and that she will submit to any use you wish to make of her. Anything less, and the men will be watching her in a battle, instead of keeping their minds on the enemy.’

  Kell rubbed his chin. ‘My queen, you wish to turn her into the camp whore? I’m not so sure anyone would be interested, black-haired little scrap that she is.’

  ‘If the men don’t have good reason to hate her already, sorcerer, they will once it is made known she had a hand in Osebian’s death. I assure you, they will come flocking after that announcement, and will be clamouring for a chance to teach the wench her place.’ The queen lifted her head and fixed her gaze on Rasten. ‘What is it, boy? You look as though you have something to say.’

  ‘Your majesty,’ Rasten said with a bow. ‘What you suggest is very dangerous. She draws power from those around her —’

  ‘Hold your tongue, boy, the queen knows the wench’s nature. It’s time we brought her out in public, anyway, and I’ve been crafting a new set of restraints so we may take her safely to and from a place of battle. This sounds like a suitable test, with you and me on hand to keep her contained and without the presence of enemies to distract us. And, as I think on it, it would be good to give her an example of what to expect should she be disobedient on a battlefield.’

  ‘He doesn’t look happy about it,’ Valeria said, still watching Rasten. ‘Has he had the girl all to himself? The young are so sentimental about such things.’

  ‘He won’t make a fuss,’ Kell said. ‘Will you, boy?’

  ‘No, sir, but —’

  ‘Haven’t you been telling me that the girl is a model of obedience? Haven’t you said her spirit is all but gone? Have you been lying to me, boy?’

  ‘No, sir, of course not —’

  ‘I’ve ordered a rack constructed on the ground before the fortress gates,’ Valeria said. ‘It could fit him as easily as her, should you wish to make a more pointed demonstration of the value of obedience.’

  ‘Perhaps I will,’ Kell said, ‘if he continues to question my authority. Well, boy, which is it to be?’

  There was no way out. Rasten lowered his gaze and sank to his knees. ‘I will do as you command, master.’

  He was trapped. They both were.

  Rasten’s mind raced as he collected the new restraints, and then padded through the chill corridors to the chamber where he’d left Sierra. What else could he have done? Telling Kell that Sierra was bound to fight was futile. As Kell saw it, this was as much a test of his apprentice as it was of the girl. If she fought — and he was sure she would — Rasten would have to use all his strength to keep her under control.

  And what if she didn’t fight? What if she restrained herself and submitted to the very public degradation Valeria had planned? Rasten was not sure she was capable of it, but she did have a habit of surprising him. What would that do to her?

  With the harness of wire and stones rattling in his hand, Rasten slipped into the chamber.

  She hadn’t moved since he closed the door and left her in the dark. There were no chains and manacles this time — she was bound by nothing more than thread tied to the needles that pierced her skin.

  She lifted her head as he entered and twisted around to look at him. Her eyes were dark and empty. ‘I didn’t expect you back so soon.’

  Rasten didn’t rely. He hung the harness over his shoulder and drew his knife.

  She would fight. He couldn’t imagine his Sirri willingly submitting to what Valeria had in mind. But what then? Kell would beat her down, and most likely cripple her in the process. She’d grown in strength and skill since they began their private lessons, but she still wasn’t ready to face him. Not yet.

  He drew blood with the tip of his knife and drew a fresh sigil on her back. He pushed his way into her mind, shoved her down and then locked a shield around her. Through the connection they shared he could measure the effect — her vision seemed to be shrouded in mist, her ears stopped up with wool. He felt her squirming within the shield, but the sigil and the ritual bond meant that her power was his for the time being, and she could not break free.

  With the sigil drawn he buckled the harness in place. The white stones were quite familiar — they’d been cut from the same sort that Sierra had created in the battle of Terundel.

  Sierra couldn’t so much as flinch as he pulled the straps tight. The stones were held firmly against her skin and clustered over the centres of energy spaced along her spine. Between them and the sigil of obedience scored onto her back, she was little more than a puppet.

  His stomach clenched, forming a hard and painful knot. She would never forgive him for this, but what else could he do? He pushed the pain aside and focussed on the anger instead, taking refuge in fury as he so often had. ‘You brought this on yourself,’ he growled in her ear as he began to cut the threads and withdraw the needles. ‘You chose this path the moment you tied the noose around Osebian’s neck. Just remember, it will end, and you will survive it. I’ve locked you down for your own good — this is not the time to challenge Kell, Little Crow, no matter how much you might want to. I cursed well hope freeing the prince was worth it.’ With the last of the needles withdrawn, Rasten took her by the arm and steered her towards the door. At that touch he could feel her rage and fear as she struggled against the shield, but it held her as firmly as a beast in a cage.

  A pair of the queen’s servants waited at the entrance to the dungeons. They stepped forward at once to take her from him and dress her in a plain shift. It was all Rasten could do to keep from tearing them apart for daring to touch her. She was his, by all the Gods! She’d been his from the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

  He forced himself to step back and let the servants carry out their orders. If he showed his fury, it would be reported to Kell. There was nothing he could do to prevent this from happening, and if he showed it distressed him, Kell would gain far more pleasure from that than he would from seeing Sierra’s public humiliation. If he showed the smallest flicker of emotion, Kell would store this away as another punishment to inflict upon him. Watching Sierra go through it once would be bad enough; he would not be the cause of her enduring it again.

  Once Sierra was dressed the servants swung open the doors and a detachment of the king’s guards formed up around them. With Sierra and Rasten surrounded, they marched through the fortress gates and out into the camp.

  Word had spread through the men just as quickly as the queen had prophesied. Soldiers lined the roadway, crowded and jostling for a look at the woman who had caused them so much trouble. At the first sight of her, a raucous and jeering cheer rang out in an assault of noise.

  When the first rock was thrown Rasten was ready for it. He spun a shield to cover them both, sending the muddy stone bouncing off his flame-coloured veil. He checked his shields again — Sierra was still locked down, but she had stopped struggling and seemed huddled within herself, watching and listening.

  You’ll get
through this, Rasten told her. When it starts, put your mind elsewhere, think of something else. It can’t last forever. The men might jeer and laugh now, but there will come a time when they look back on this day and tremble when your gaze falls on them. Trust me, Little Crow: I’ve been here before.

  She made no reply, and Rasten knew she was thinking there must be some way out of this. There must be something she could do to turn it around. Well, she had to learn sooner or later just what it meant to have this kind of power. She would have to learn the body was only a vehicle for the mind, and treating it as anything more led to pain and heartache.

  Looming ahead was the apparatus Valeria had commissioned — a kind of stage, tall enough that those upon it could be easily seen by the gathered crowd. Valeria was there already, wearing a robe of leopard furs over her crimson skirts. She was making some sort of speech, which the assembled men cheered at every pause, but Rasten paid no attention to the words. He could feel the power flowing from the crowd and drawn into Sierra. There was nothing they could do to stop that influx of energy. Once, they might have been able to keep her too weak and too weary to control it, but Rasten had spent the past few weeks drilling her on just that. He checked his shields again.

  Kell was on the platform, too, standing back and looking bored as the queen roused the crowd to a frenzy. At his signal, the guards pulled Sierra from Rasten’s grasp and hauled her to the stage. Rasten hurried after them, but the moment Sierra appeared on the dais, the gathered men broke out into a roar that drowned out the queen’s voice, such a vast noise that it seemed to Rasten that the earth itself trembled beneath them.

  Come to me, boy, Kell’s voice sounded in his head. Let them deal with her.

  He had no choice. Rasten obeyed, and as he did, he rubbed his palm against his thigh. A few moments earlier his hands had been damp with tension, but now it felt slick and strangely dry; slippery rather than sticky with sweat. He glanced down and saw a chalky mark on his trousers. Then he looked at his palm; it was coated with a layer of white powder that had settled into the creases of his skin.

  Rasten had felt utter disbelief a few times in his life; the conviction that what he saw simply wasn’t possible. He supposed he must have felt it on the day his family died and Kell took him prisoner, but he’d blocked that memory out a long time before. Most recently he had felt it back near midwinter, when he entered Kell’s tent to find Sierra gone, with only a broken chain to mark her place.

  Two men held Sierra with her arms outstretched, while another took hold of the snowy linen shift and ripped it open from neck to hem. It was growing dark now, but the dais was brightly lit with torches so that all present could see the display. As the sheer cloth tore and fluttered in the evening breeze, a fine, chalky powder rose from the fabric like smoke from a fire.

  The crowd cheered and howled at the sight of her naked form, but all Rasten could see was that the glossy milk-white stones had turned dull and lifeless, crumbling to a dull-white powder.

  Rasten felt frozen to the spot. He felt like a child again, knowing that the events around him were utterly out of his control. He felt his master motionless beside him, staring in shock at the crumbling stones, and remembered the dagger on his belt. One strike to the old man’s unprotected back, that’s all it would take, and Kell would die as surely as the old servant had. He steeled himself, summoning all his courage to snatch at the hilt and strike, but his muscles wouldn’t obey. He was paralysed, utterly frozen with fear, just as he had been all those years ago when the soldiers had broken down the door …

  Through all the confusion and paralysis, the disbelief and the memories, Rasten felt Sierra flex within the shield. She wound her fingers around the bars of the mental cage and pulled them towards her, breaking it down from the inside as she tore his walls apart.

  It felt as though she was tearing him limb from limb — there was nothing quite like the pain of having a working ripped apart. Rasten fell to his knees, gasping for breath with lungs that felt as though she was wringing them out like a sodden cloth. He’d been so determined to keep her from fighting that he’d tied the shield to his own life-force. By turning the tables and taking control of that power, she had sunk her claws deep into his flesh and blood.

  The two men who held Sierra by the arms had no idea that the enchantments were failing. As they began to pull her towards the rack, Sierra dug in her heels and pulled back. It should have been a futile resistance — together, armed, armoured and dressed for a cold spring night, they were several times her weight — but it was as though she was rooted to the floor. While they held her wrists, she twisted in their grip and touched her fingertips to their skin.

  Both men went rigid, standing so unnaturally still it seemed they’d been turned to stone.

  Then they began to bleed.

  The men nearest the dais fell silent first, while those behind continued their shouts and cheers until the blood flowing from Sierra’s guards’ ears and eyes, dripping from mouth and nose and even weeping from the pores of their skin grew dark enough that even those at the back could see that something had gone horribly wrong.

  The men holding Sierra then burst into a dazzling, writhing display of light, screaming as they clawed at the lightning dancing across their skin. It flowed out of them like quicksilver, like some vicious living thing questing for fresh blood.

  The grip around Rasten’s lungs eased as Sierra’s power found a new source of strength. Lightning leapt to the guards around the stage, sweeping over them in a wave as blood spouted and bones cracked, their screams lost in the howling crackle of power.

  The men who had pressed close tried to retreat; but those at the back stood their ground, either stupid with drink or unable to believe what they saw. Brawls erupted all around as men fought to get away. Some fell and were trampled as others scrambled over the fallen bodies in panic, fleeing the spreading storm.

  Sierra threw her head back and let the power surge through her. The harness fell away in pieces, the leather charred to ash and the stones crumbled to powder, but she was not naked — to Rasten it seemed that she was clothed in fire and rage. Light covered her skin, trailed behind her in a crackling wake and shed from her in every movement.

  Valeria was gone. Rasten glimpsed her fleeing towards the fort with a handful of guards, and wondered if she truly thought walls and gates would protect her.

  Kell still stood by Rasten’s side; with a contemptuous glance at his gasping apprentice, the old Blood-Mage raised his knobbed cane and swept the dais clean, hurling aside the rack and the smoking remains of the guards.

  Sierra turned and focussed on him with eyes that held all the power of a storm.

  Rasten found himself struggling to his feet as he reached for his knife. This wasn’t right; none of this was right. It was impossible to destroy Kell in an impulsive attack, a mere glimmer of opportunity seized out of fear and desperation. Other apprentices had tried and failed, but it was happening now all the same, and the situation was out of his control. The wise thing to do would be to aid his master, to show that this revolt was none of his doing, to wait until the time was right … but he couldn’t bring himself to stand beside this man he hated and fight to defend him.

  Rasten drew the knife.

  Kell struck at Sierra, a great crushing blow of power. It cut right through her defences — a trick that Rasten had never understood, the way he could slip through a shield like a needle through cloth. But Sierra absorbed the blow with only a flinch, and then struck back with enough force to send Kell reeling. For a moment, the old man faltered.

  Keeping his eyes fixed on Kell’s back, Rasten started towards him.

  Kell stiffened and wrenched around, eyes full of such anger that Rasten swayed to a stop, his innards turned to water in the face of the old man’s fury.

  With one sweeping blow of power Kell cut the dais in two, and then set the wood beneath Sierra alight. With a blast he crushed the platform beneath her, and she cried out, scrambling to sh
ield herself against the flames, burning all the more fiercely from the power spilling from her.

  With Sierra distracted, Kell turned his attention to Rasten. He reached into Rasten’s core with a swift-striking snake of power, using gates and channels he had spent the last decade forging. Once again, Rasten felt as though a hand was wrapped around his vitals, crushing him from within.

  ‘Boy?’ Kell said incredulously. ‘You ungrateful wretch, you worthless, cunt-grubbing whore! You’ll pay for this.’

  Sierra flung the burning wood aside. Men were dying all around, and still more were injured and in pain as they scrambled for safety. Power flooded into her like melt-water swelling a river. It was very hard to focus on the two men struggling on the platform above.

  Rasten was losing the battle. He’d frozen up, choked at the crucial moment — Kell had conditioned him too well. Kell pinned him to the decking and wrenched the knife from his hand as he drained Rasten’s life-force. When he was neutralised, Kell would turn and come after her.

  She could have run then, could have turned and fled, but the idea scarcely tempted her. She had tried that once and it had got her nowhere.

  With a sweep of power Sierra crushed the remaining supports and brought the dais down in a shower of blue sparks and flickering flames. As the stage fell, she opened the channel that tied her to Rasten and let power flood through, shoring up the strength that Kell was draining from him. Perhaps it was a mistake — by feeding Rasten she was feeding Kell — but Rasten was the nearest thing to an ally she had, and she didn’t want to face Kell alone.

  As the stage crashed down at her feet, Kell’s grip on his apprentice didn’t waver. Fight, curse you, fight! she screamed at Rasten through the connection. With a dozen writhing threads of power she gathered up the splintered and charred wreckage of the stage and hurled it at Kell’s back. He deflected it with a shield, but did not glance around.