by Matthew Ward
“All of it.”
Altiris’ heart ached in sympathy with the pain in Lady Reveque’s voice.
Sidara shook her head as if in a dream. “All of it.” She looked up at Altiris, and the mother’s sadness became as nothing compared to the daughter’s. “Thank you for everything, Altiris. I would never have believed a southwealder more faithful than both my parents combined.”
She stumbled from the kitchen.
“Sidara…” Lady Reveque reached for her, only to have her hand brushed aside. She stood in the doorway, staring after her daughter, a broken woman suddenly years older. “So much like her mother. Too quick to judge, and too certain in that judgement.”
She sank into a chair, face buried in her hands.
“Would you do me the kindness of leaving, Altiris? I need space and silence. One of the maids will find you a bedroom in which to seek your own.”
Altiris was all too eager to accede. And yet he found himself halting on the threshold, his wariness of Lady Reveque worn away by her distress. “I’ll say nothing of this, lady. Not to anyone. I swear I won’t.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “My daughter believes me a liar and a traitor. Worse, in large part she’s correct. What do strangers matter?”
“Malachi?”
He blinked awake, cheek numb and gummed to the table. Thoughts gibbering their weariness, he levered himself upright. His elbow jogged a brandy glass and set amber liquid rippling. He’d not even tasted it before sleep had taken him. Too many days and nights too close to the edge, and nothing to show for it but failure.
The shapeless figure hovering half-in, half-out of the council chamber doorway resolved to familiar features. Plaited black hair, and a young face worn by recent days.
“Messela? Has there been any word from Lancras?”
“Not since this morning. I’ve sent a herald to remind Master Toldav of haste.”
He nodded weary thanks. Lancras. Constables stripped from the Outer Isles and marines from the navy. The Republic had little else to offer. Everything else was committed, sent to reinforce Izack at Tarvallion, or lost on the march, away from his sight.
And even if the reinforcements were able to reclaim those streets, Tarvallion could already have fallen, broken apart as swiftly and brutally as Ahrad. Izack’s coded reports had been guarded at best, even with their claims that dread spirits had rescued one battle from disaster. Unthinkable, a year before. Now? Now strange tales were the foundation of unfolding events. Even if they were true, why would the Raven defend the Republic against the Hadari, even while his Crowmarket undermined it from within?
“And the rest?” he asked, not wanting to know the answer. “The casualty reports from Dregmeet?”
Messela hesitated. “Lieutenant Raldan has two dozen constables watching the boundary. He claims there’s as many again will be good for duty soon. It might be a handful have missed his count, but even so…”
Even so, that left hundreds missing. Malachi had little hope they’d be found alive. And the constabulary was only a thread in the woeful tapestry. The butcher’s bill stretched far into the hundreds. Maybe thousands, when you counted the citizenry trapped in the stolen streets. Maybe even Sidara.
He crushed the thought away before misery overwhelmed.
“I spoke to the Grand Council this afternoon. They’d have torn me apart but for fear one of them would have to take my place.” He forced a mirthless smile. “Who’d want that?”
Messela stepped inside and closed the door. “We’re not done, Malachi. I promise you.”
He snorted. “You sound like Viktor.”
“Would you believe I hardly know him? If you want to know the truth, I’ve resented him all my life. I knew we’d always be compared, and that I’d always be judged the lesser. Maybe that’s as it should be. I’ve never been brave, or strong.” She spread her hands. “Even now, the only reason I’m here is because he chose it for me, not because I earned it. Better to be his friend than his family.”
The confession said much of her reluctance at council. “I look at all I’ve done this last year – the mistakes I’ve made – and I wonder, did pride lead me here?” Malachi twitched a shrug. “My need to prove myself Viktor’s equal… even his better?”
“You’re not responsible for those the vranakin have killed.”
“Am I not?” Seized by perverse desire, he almost confessed his crooked bargain. “History may judge differently.”
Messela shrugged. “Let it. And there is good news alongside the bad.”
He snorted. “Such as?”
“Sidara’s back at Abbeyfields, hurt but mending. Word arrived a little while ago. That’s why I came looking for you.”
The news struck Malachi silent – giddy and breathless in a moment of perfect joy. He offered a wry smile. “You might have led with that.”
“And follow good tidings with bad? It’s not polite.” She knelt beside him, one hand on his knee. “Go home, Malachi. See your family.”
“I can’t. Someone has to give Toldav his orders. If I’m not here, Leonast will do so, and matters will be worse.”
“I thought you and Lord Lamirov had found common cause?”
“Not enough to trust him. It’s enough to know my daughter is alive. The rest will wait.”
The silent, kneeling crowd parted readily before Apara’s escort. How many had come to the Church of Tithes out of choice, more than fear? Certainly not all. There were uninitiated among the masked vranakin; stolen children with fearful, darting eyes. Older folk, too. The wealthy citizens of Highvale shoulder to shoulder with the poor who’d scraped a living within Dregmeet’s former bounds, feigning fealty in hope of survival.
The church’s gates gave way to a musty interior lit by candle and sweet-scented ghostfire – for all that the Parliament of Crows welcomed the etravia to the streets, they did not do so into their own lair. There were few mourners beneath the leering, wax-crusted crow statues, and fewer faces Apara recognised. Erad was one, his averted gaze unfriendly as the grim procession passed him by. Most were elder cousins, tattered robes formless in the gloom. Apara’s legs trembled with every step, but she stumbled on.
Athariss’ corpse lay upon the altar, now identifiable only by its gold-edged robes. Years held at bay in life ravaged him in death, his flesh hissing to dust even as Apara had laid him on the church steps and fled into the night. Bare scraps of desiccated flesh clung to his bones, matter trickling away as eternity took revenge. Beyond the pulpits, the space where Nalka had screamed her last waited, empty and beckoning.
Krastin and Shurla stood before the dais, heads bowed.
The former looked up as she approached. “Apara. You see what your failure has wrought?”
“You should have offered the Reveque girl to the Raven,” snapped Shurla.
She dropped her eyes to the cracked tiles of the floor. “I can’t. You know I can’t.”
And yet she almost had. The shadow’s grip had faltered, worn away by the mists as Krastin had promised. If she’d only been stronger, none of this would have happened.
“You will speak with respect!”
Shuddering, Apara fell to her knees, head bowed. “Yes, Crowmother.”
“It wasn’t her fault. Arrogance brought us to this place.” Krastin ran a tender hand across Athariss’ lifeless brow. “Ours. Athariss’. And Lord Reveque’s. Now we are two where we should be three. The Raven’s gift unmade by jealous light.”
Even trammelled by fear, Apara didn’t mistake the admission. That for all Darrow’s sword had struck the final blow, Sidara’s had sealed Athariss’ fate.
“How can you speak so calmly?” hissed Shurla, too quiet for the words to carry. “Athariss is gone. Our holy grip on Otherworld falters.”
“The Crowmarket’s strength was never in the Raven’s blessing, but in family.” Not for the first time, Krastin’s tone suggested unease with his sister’s zealotry. “You saw the crowds beyond these walls. They believe in us agai
n, as they did in old days. We need only a sign, and our family will grow, boundless with deathless promise.”
Apara found it impossible not to read cynicism in his words, not with rotting forms of elder cousins standing close enough to scent their decay. For all Krastin spoke of family – for all he’d declaimed to Malachi of bringing hope to the forlorn – he was either unwilling or unable to fully share his longevity. He was eternal, whereas they were merely hollow folk who hadn’t died when they should.
How many would flock to the Crowmarket if they knew that that flight ended in an elder cousin’s worm-eaten existence, alive by the barest technicality, immortal in none of the ways that mattered. Were the elder cousins even aware of what they’d become? Did they care? Were they capable of caring?
A prizrak’s madness might be preferable.
“The Hayadra Grove,” said Krastin. “Athariss’ spirit is gone, but his body holds power enough. Let the holy trees rot. Faith will falter.”
Shurla nodded. “And what of her? To fail Athariss was heresy. She defied the Raven’s will.”
Apara shuddered as Krastin’s gaze fell upon her.
“Family is forgiveness,” he intoned, his words echoing through the church’s gloom. “But forgiveness must be earned.”
Cold hands closed about Apara’s and raised her to her feet.
She swallowed. “W… what must I do, Crowfather?”
He stared about the church, meeting the gaze of each of the assembled cousins in turn. “Malachi Reveque has declared himself our enemy. Let him serve as a lesson to all. Not a death of shadows, but a beacon. A pyre that blazes so bright that none will doubt our resolve.” His voice dropped, again the kindly grandsire, pained by the failing of his kin. “Will you give me this, Apara?”
What choice did she have? “Yes, Crowfather.”
Fifty
Melanna found herself beneath the stars. Impossibly distant, they swam the inky void in graceful shoals, motion so minuscule that only ardent attention revealed it. To offer that same attention was to be lost to hypnotic splendour – to the blaze of white, and the vibrant colours of wistful clouds behind. The air hung heavy with forgotten times and broken promises.
An uneven causeway of geometric stone stretched away across the waters of a black, glimmerless river. Song danced above the rushing waters, mournful, beautiful and cold as the stars, the singers hidden in the outer darkness even as Melanna sought them.
Ashana laid a hand on her shoulder. “The river has no claim on you. I hope it never does. But it won’t pass up a gift given freely.”
Melanna blinked and stared down. Her feet, no longer on the firm stone of the causeway’s centre, now teetered on its edge. Two strangers stared back as reflection. Ashana was no longer fair, but dark, her features sharper. Beautiful still, but the beauty of the knife, or the serpent – perfection made cruel. Melanna’s own reflection bore a rich, autumnal hue in flesh and raiment alike. Even the reflection’s eyes were coloured thus, the difference of texture and form marked only by the lazy swirl of… woodgrain? The Melanna of the river was a statue, carved and polished, her limbs locked in place while her eyes screamed.
As Melanna beheld the image, the heavier her own limbs felt. Her skin grew numb. She stumbled away.
Ashana crowded close, face twisted in concern. “What did you see?”
“I don’t know. It was me, but it wasn’t.”
The stars had lost their beauty, now cruel and cold… even watchful. Melanna gazed back to the gateway of mist where the Huntsman stood alone, vapour boiling to nothingness about his shoulders. Though armour and antlered helm had been restored, he bore both unsteadily. Without his spear’s support he’d have fallen.
“Where are we?”
“It’s never needed a name.”
“It needs one now. Is this Evermoon?” Melanna shivered as she spoke the word, a frisson of reverence tempered by fear of treading sacred ground – the dwelling place of ancestors and heroes long dead.
“No.” Ashana smiled as if at some private joke. “Bright Evermoon and dark Eventide are but worlds, as Aradane is a world. Each only one among many. Vaalon, Astarria, Maida… the others. Gears in a celestial clock. This is the face of that clock. It couldn’t exist without the others, but nor would they have purpose without it. Otherworld exists between the gears. The river is oil that keeps them moving. Both serve as pathways through today and tomorrow, if you have the knack.”
“It doesn’t look like any clockface I’ve ever seen.”
Ashana shrugged. “Of course not. It’s a metaphor.”
“To explain away something I don’t understand?”
“To explain away something I don’t understand.” She smiled tiredly. “Not everything surrenders to our desire for answers, Melanna. The gears bite, the clock turns, and time ticks away, ushering the end.”
Last Night and Third Dawn. Melanna shuddered. “Is it truly inevitable?”
“Even the inevitable can be delayed.”
Ashana set off along the causeway. Melanna glanced again at the Huntsman. He’d supported when no other had. To see him worn away was harder than standing witness to his death.
“Will he be all right?”
“He’ll endure,” said Ashana. “He holds the gate open for our return. I’m not strong enough. Words must serve. And if they don’t, then hands other than mine.”
They followed the causeway, arrow-straight and unveering. Melanna closed her heart to the mournful song, to the hypnotic glory of the stars. Better to think it a dream than hark to the Goddess’ tales of gears and turning worlds. It helped fend off mounting insignificance, of being a mote of dust upon a reality too vast to comprehend.
Then the causeway broadened to a craggy island, and insignificance flooded back stronger than ever.
The centre of the island fell away into a pool, the waters as black and featureless as those lapping its outer shore. Thrones clustered about, tiered in uneven circles and flanked by tall braziers. Some of the thrones were sunken, half-reclaimed by the island’s stone. Others lay in ruins, backrests split or shorn away. Seven remained. One was cracked, golden light shining beneath its wounds. Another glimmered silver. A third was not stone at all, but a tangled bower woven from thorns. The fourth a plain chair, without ornament or pretension.
But Melanna’s intimidation arose not from the thrones themselves, but the occupants of the three that remained.
One looked to be asleep. Dust trickled from decaying armour with every heave of a thickset frame. Corrosion clung to tarnished metallic flesh. He’d no skin to speak of, and each strand of musculature was a cable of folded iron. A torn cloak the colour of dried blood flowed from his shoulders, a many-faceted crown the colour of winter skies rested atop a mane of rust-covered wire.
Across the pool, another sat motionless, as if the tiniest flicker of movement was affront to his being. He wore a pressed waistcoat and long-sleeved suit of good cloth, almost Tressian in its design, save that there was no flamboyance to soften austerity – just as the man himself might have passed for an elderly ephemeral, but for his halo of indigo flame and empty eyes.
These two, Melanna recognised from old tales, spun by visitors to the Golden Court. Astor, Lord of the Forge and the Smelted Soul. Tzal, the Unmaker, the Forlorn. Only the third was unknown to her. In aspect a dark-haired young woman, she sat on tucked legs on a throne flanked by lissom, alabaster statues frozen in the act of beseeching her favour. Her yellow gown was as severe in cut as Tzal’s raiment, though not without elegance. She too came within passing distance of human, save for her eyes, which were vivid blue-green.
Who was she? Not Endala, whom ancient Tressians had worshipped, for Endala was always portrayed as a woman in her prime, and serpentine below the waist. If not her, then who? Scripture named multitude false gods and demons.
Her eyes met Melanna’s. She stumbled away, overcome with the urge to kneel, to flee, to beg – anything to escape attention, or dissipate the sense of wor
thlessness.
Ashana’s hand found Melanna’s shoulder, warm even in that cold, timeless place. “Be calm. You’re stronger than this.”
“Aren’t you supposed to tell me there’s nothing to fear?”
“You stand among the divine, in a place that is no place,” replied Ashana. “Fear’s sensible enough. But no harm will befall you.”
She entered the circle of thrones.
“Ashana.” Tzal’s empty stare tracked her approach, his tone dry with disdain, his words threaded by a chorus of voices. “We are here, as you demanded.”
“As I requested,” said Ashana. “Where are the others?”
Astor stirred, his voice a rumble of heaving stone. “Have patience, little moon. They will come in their own time, or not at all.”
The dark-haired goddess shifted on her throne.
Ashana narrowed her eyes. “Had you joined your voice to mine, they’d be here. They can’t defy us all.”
Tzal’s indigo flames glowed richer and brighter. “Have a care, sister. I indulged your desire to meet. That is already more than you’d right to expect.”
“There is an order to these affairs,” rumbled Astor. “Tradition to be observed.”
“We stand on a precipice,” said Ashana. “What use tradition if we fall?”
Tzal snorted. “You’re still ephemeral at heart.”
“At least I have a heart.”
“I agree with Ashana.” The dark-haired goddess sat forward on her throne, her gloved hands gripping the armrests as if she expected at any moment to fall. For the first time, Melanna realised that her feet wouldn’t have reached the ground even had she sat round. “The others should be here.”
“It’s a waste of time,” growled Tzal.
“Better to waste it, Father,” she replied, “than regret that we didn’t when we could.”
“Your opinion, daughter, matters even less than hers. You may sit upon your mother’s throne, but you haven’t earned it.”