by Anne Brooke
Heart beating faster than he’s known for a while, the Lammas Lord takes two or three paces towards the man. He does not know what he intends to do for sure when he reaches him but he knows he must try, by the gods and stars. The next moment, something twists his legs from under him and he lands with a thump on the smouldering ground. Without thought, he heaves himself back onto his feet and sees the white sheen of the drum-stick broken at his feet and Apolyon’s frightened eyes staring up at him.
He curses, just as the man running towards them and nearer now than Ralph believes he would come loses the luck which has blessed him. With the pressure of his feet on boiling earth, the fire-oil ignites and a great sheet of flame lifts the unfortunate man into the singing air where his limbs and skin and hair explode into the all-consuming fire. His dying scream echoes Apolyon’s shout, and Ralph grabs the boy and clutches his small frame to him, covering his servant’s head so he cannot witness how cruel death can be. By the gods he is too young, and Jemelda has unleashed a terror all of them will be hard-pressed to capture again.
Behind him, Ralph sees the villagers are running for safety, but they are in no danger, though only the stars know how they have survived it. The fire-oil has claimed its victim and the flame will feast on the unfortunate man for a while. He stands up, still clutching the boy to him, and shouts at their fleeing backs. He doesn’t expect to be heard, but he knows he has to try. This is battle in truth and he is their commanding officer, he demands their allegiance, and their strength, no matter what has passed before between them.
His voice is as clear as a hawk flying over summer trees, finding that break in the roar of the flame he has not thought to find. The men and women stop at once, as if he has set soldiers on them upon pain of death, as his father has done and as he too has tried, once, but he has learnt his lesson now. By the gods and stars how he has learnt it.
“Return,” he shouts. “This is no time to run. Return and fight these flames before our hopes and crops are consumed.”
Then, knowing whatever happens he too must perform this duty, he eases the trembling boy to the earth where it is unscorched, and continues the task of beating the fire back where it belongs, into the belly of the land. On his own, it will take him till morning, but he is not alone. A moment later, a mere heartbeat, something brushes his arm, and he sees Apolyon struggle to his feet, seize a length of cloth where it has been abandoned and begin to follow his master’s actions, shadowing the Lammas Lord as if only at his side can he find safety. Ralph can see the marks of tears on the boy’s cheek and the quivering glances he casts in the direction of where the remains of the dead man lie but he does not falter.
“Thank you,” Ralph finds himself whispering to his young steward, and is rewarded by a flicker of a smile on Apolyon’s face. It is the first time he has thanked a servant and meant it so fully. The sensation and its newness are not unpleasant.
After a few more moments, the handful of people who have tried to run drift back. He can sense their returning in the shadows around him and he hears the sound of breathing next to him and further along the line also.
No-one speaks but it doesn’t matter. It will be a long night-cycle but they are working together, he and his people, in a way he cannot remember having occurred before. He hopes it will last. He hopes too that Simon, if he could see him, would be proud.
Simon
He knew the instant he had erred in his judgement as the mind-cane tumbled him from sleep, its warmth on his arm almost piercing skin. In his thought, at the forefront so he could neither deny it nor shake it loose, was a vision of Ralph surrounded by fire and pain. With the Lammas Lord was a small boy Simon didn’t recognise, but the whole picture appeared to him to be so real he could have reached out and felt the heat and flame. Still, he should be used to the connection of Ralph and fire, damn the man, as recent experience had set the two in close relationship to each other far too many times, with Simon as a reluctant participant.
Nonetheless the Lost One knew this was no dream and he cursed his inability to go to the man, his body being nothing but a weak vessel his mind could not fully command.
What do I do to save him?
He spoke in his thought to the mind-cane, but he already knew the answer. Help me then. You say I am strong but I am weak.
But when you are weak, then you are as strong as the sky and the earth and all that dwells within it.
The cane’s response made him blink, but he did not falter. He sat up and, bringing the artefact to his face, pressed the silver carving to his forehead. He knew instinctively he needed all the power he could get from its mystery and so a light touch would not be enough. He wanted it to burn him, to the core. He needed it. At once, the silver world of the mind-cane exploded into his own world. It was the sun and the moon, earth and air and water. It was all the journeys he’d ever taken and those he had not.
You, he found himself breathing as the overwhelming power plunged through him. You.
The Lost One thought he had died in truth and for a final time, but he was more alive than he’d ever been. When he opened his eyes, his own understanding of himself had gone where he could no longer sense it but it did not matter. He was who he was intended to be, as if every puzzle and maze inside himself had slotted into place and there was nothing before him but level plains and a wide, smooth path. The fact of it, the very sparkle of silver flame at his fingertips, made him laugh. He took the cane where it lay trembling against his forehead and kissed it.
You.
Yes.
And those were the only words he needed to think. Beyond them, he sensed only colours: a bright rainbow of red and green, blue and the pure white of snow on mountains on a silent morning. The rainbow swirled and settled in front of him and he saw it was a corridor, like the one he and his fellow-travellers had walked through in the Kingdom of the Sky. How long ago that seemed to be today, so much had he experienced since that moment. But it allowed him to know what to do without hesitation. Feeling the solid stamp of the mind-cane melding with his hand and thought, he stepped forward into the shifting colours, his pace neither too hurried nor too slow but steady as a man with purpose who knows he will fulfil it. Because the time-cycle, as it had always been, was perfect.
At the end of the corridor he saw a layer of silver mist. The colours around it did not meld with its strange shimmer but formed an unbroken frame that held it in place. The Lost One wondered for a moment if he should step through to the other side, but he was no god or sky-star, he was only a man and it would be wise for him to remember it. His own foolishness made him smile.
Look, the mind-cane spoke directly to his thought, and the Lost One obeyed. He gazed through the mist at the scene beyond. He could see the Lammas fields burning up almost as far as the woods. For a heartbeat, it was impossible to understand and then he knew, as clearly as if the Gathandrian Spirit had spoken directly to his heart, that this was what Jemelda had planned and this was what she was hurrying to do when he glimpsed her. He had no sure knowledge of the ways of farming although he had spent much of his life gleaning what nourishment he could from the fields and leavings of farmers during his travelling life. But he understood only too well how the seeds sown before the snows came were the lifeblood of the people, and this year-cycle there couldn’t have been many because of the war’s horrors.
Jemelda had struck a blow at the heart of the life the Lost One was trying to reclaim for Ralph’s people. If the villagers were left to starve, what would that mean for his mission to save them? Simon cursed under his breath at the cook’s cruel cunning, and the mind-cane twisted in his grip. Look again.
Throat dry, he did so. Someone was running across the field and the weight of the man’s fear slapped across his belly as if he felt it himself. Wolf. Simon cried out, stretching forth his hand towards the mist before snatching it back again as searing heat from the cane pierced him. He could not help the man, but how he wanted to. Some things remained impossible no matter how
much you tried.
The fire pursued the fugitive across the burning field and the Lost One held his breath, hoping some miracle from the stars themselves might yet occur and the villager would not be consumed. Something else caught his attention at the edge of his vision: a dark-haired man beginning to run towards the one who was doomed. No. If one man must die, why should another perish? The moment he understood the man intent on rescue was Ralph, he cried out a jagged warning which could never be heard, but already the scene had reached its terrible conclusion. The fire oil consumed the unfortunate villager, and Ralph and the young lad gripping his cloak were flung backwards onto the earth. Simon’s mind shook with dread, but he felt nothing in his thoughts that spoke of a final separation from the Lammas Lord. Injured or not, Ralph was alive still. How had he felt when Simon had died? By the gods, there was a question he did not wish to dwell on, neither for Ralph’s sake or his own.
Even as he forced himself to ignore this puzzle, the vision in front of him melted away and he could see what was happening in the corn fields no more. He gripped the mind-cane harder, willing it to connect with him and bring back the events he needed to know.
The gifting of sight can only be borne for a story’s start, not for its full completion.
“Yes, so you say,” Simon spoke aloud, surprising himself. “You are full of wisdom, but now is the time for action and not for meditation on whatever deep mission you and our gods are drawing us towards. But no matter, I must go to the people. Whatever occurs, I need to be with them, whether they want it or not.”
His own impassioned words, like the mind-cane’s, were all very well and good, and Simon meant them, but though his thought was sure his limbs were weak. He needed to get to Ralph and the villagers, but he needed to find another way than by walking. The cane gave him no answers but then he had it.
He leaned out of the window, the crisp night air sending a harsher chill through his bones, and scanned the star-bright skies. “Where are you, great air-lord? Come to me, I have need of your strength tonight!”
Simon held his breath to listen for what he longed to hear, but the silence held court over the castle. He closed his eyes and conjured up the vision of the snow-raven, feeling the feathers and whiteness and strange unknowable warmth in his mind. Come to me, I the Lost One command it.
A whoosh and displacement of air, and when he opened his eyes, the great white bird was floating like a ghost from the corner of the roof towards him. His heart beat faster. He did not relish his journey but it was needful. He reached out to the raven but the bird fluttered away from his grasp, its wings brushing against his face before they eased away. He took a breath and waited for the raven’s flight path to bring him near once more. When it did, Simon reached further out of the window and tried to catch those vast wings, but again the raven eluded him. He cursed to himself, knowing he had no time to waste. He must be with the people if they would ever accept him amongst them. If he let them down a second time, why should they learn to trust him? What did the snow-raven want and what prevented the bird from fulfilling his command?
In his hands the mind-cane lurched, and the memory of his journey to Gathandria flooded his thought: the mountain; the wild dogs; the path to the air-kingdom where the ravens dwelt. A time when his desperation had unaccountably turned to courage, of a sort. A time when he had needed to prove his heart’s true path, or its beginning.
Simon nodded. He understood. He must then launch out into the deep once more and the time for proof was not yet over.
He scrambled up so his legs balanced precariously on the crumbling window ledge. Let the snow-raven do what it might, he would fulfil the test the bird gave him, and more if he could. Yes. You know it. Ignoring the piercing pain overpowering his body, the Lost One launched himself from the high castle window with a shout. An instant of plummeting down to certain injury and a likely second death, and then something soft and strong caught him, snatching him upwards in the air. He did not know how the raven had reached him when the bird had been at the outer section of the courtyard when he fell, but Simon clung to feather and talon nonetheless, still somehow holding on to the mind-cane. He could do no other. By the gods and stars, the three of them would soar or topple together, so it seemed.
The raven kept to no earthly route, but danced the sky-path’s song so their journey was a mere jotting of the time-cycle it would have taken Simon to traverse it, even without the pain. He could smell the fire before the ravished field came into view, a sultry acid tang of burning the wind carried to him. By the stars, how fire and its cursing had harried him since he met the mind-executioner, and now it had risen again to haunt him.
He would overcome it, no matter what Jemelda intended. He had beaten death, with the gods’ help, and it was this he was made for. As the snow-raven floated above the field, Simon glanced down and saw the ravages beneath. Most of the seed sown would be lost but there might yet be some they could save. The fire-oil’s explosion had taken the heart-energy of the blaze away, and the men and women had started to beat out the flames that were left. He could not see Ralph amongst the crowd but he would be there, somewhere. Simon could sense it.
Bring me to the earth.
The words left his mind before he could fully comprehend them and he felt the warmth of the mind-cane flooding through his frame. The snow-raven turned on the whim of a wing and dropped towards the land. As the earth rose up to greet him, dizzyingly fast, Simon waited a moment more, heart beating double-rate, and then let go. He landed on something softer than he had expected, and without the heat of burning to it. That didn’t stop the red fire of pain ripping through his skin as he came to a halt, but at least he was feeling it in the land of breath, not where the dead lay waiting.
The great bird gave one long screech, a note of green edged with yellow tones, and flapped slowly away. He would have no more help from the snow-raven this night, but the bird had brought him here and that was what had been necessary.
Whatever was underneath him and had softened his fall moved and made a sound like a slow groaning.
“Simon?” the Lammas Lord whispered.
Jemelda
She watched the scene from the edge of the woods. Nobody could see her, or at least no-one battling the flames on the field had time to confront her and she was glad of it. She had sent the rest of her small band back to the cave where they might find safety but she could not leave. She had to see the results of her mission and, most of all, she needed to see the reactions of the murderer.
Still, she almost cried out and began to run to try to help when she saw the villager, one of the field-workers who had been with them for more year-cycles than she could remember, fleeing from the wolf threatening the men at the other side of the fire. It was certain death to run wherever fire-oil had been sprinkled and she would have done anything to save him, but she could not. If her aim to kill the scribe was to be fulfilled, she needed to remain alive. Her heart pounded when she saw the Lammas Lord himself make as if to rescue the man, and she did not know if she felt relief or disappointment when his young steward tumbled him to safety.
She knew for certain what she felt when she saw the great white bird in the sky and the burden he carried, however. She wondered, with a strange leap of the heart, if the scribe might die again when he seemed to release his grip on the bird’s talons and plunge to the earth. But he had judged well and the distance was not so far, all the more so as Lord Tregannon caught him as he landed, softening the fall. Under her breath she cursed, and felt that strange leap of the heart once more.
She was not as she used to be, and things inside her were altering into a fashion she could not guess at, but the bleak and all-consuming force she carried now was glad of it. How she was learning to use her power.
Not wishing to see what the murderous scribe would do, but knowing the fire would be doused, she slipped away between the trees. The wolf at the other side of the field had vanished but he would not harm her. Fire was a strong de
terrent to every creature in the land. It would have destroyed some of the seed the Lammassers needed to live and she would have to be glad of this one small step towards success. How she wished it had not come with an unnecessary death however. She had not planned for that.
It didn’t take her long to return to the cave. Thomas was on the look-out for her and nodded when he picked her out in the gloom, itself a shade lighter with the beginnings of the distant sunrise.
“Is it done?” he asked her.
“Yes. It is a beginning,” she said. “But we must do more.”
He nodded again and stood to let her pass. The cave felt colder and Jemelda wrapped her thin cloak round her more tightly to keep in what little warmth there was. Once inside, she gazed round the group. The women were huddled together, the boy amongst them, and she smiled at him. Tonight he had performed well for one so young. The menfolk formed a barrier of protection around the women. She had much to tell them.
“Come,” she said as Thomas sat down with the group. “This is what we have achieved tonight, both for good and for bad.”
As she told them how the seed had burned and would produce a poor crop for the spring, they reacted with calmness. This after all was what they had anticipated. But as she came to the section of her story where one of their own had perished, and the manner of it, the men began to grumble and the women to shake. They had not bargained for another loss, although it would be inevitable along the way. And in truth at the start of this night, Jemelda had not bargained for it either, but she must needs do so during their next attack. This much was clear.