Voices of Blaze

by H. O. Charles

  “You said you had the power to alter the vision of others. You have changed what I see.”

  “I didn’t put you in a prison cell, or try to shoot you – yes, I know about all that, but I didn’t do it. They did. Ever wonder why?”

  “Because I was foreign. I wasn’t wearing what they wore.”

  The man shook his head. “Because you are mraki. Stronger, fiercer, better.”

  “Uglier,” she said beneath her breath. If the man heard her, he chose not to respond. “Tell me then,” she said more clearly. “What do you do with your days? Hunt and kill the pin- the weaker ones?”

  “Pintrata,” he said slowly. “But of course. They are food. It is what the Father of Storms has designed for us. Animals.”

  “People,” Artemi corrected.

  He shrugged - a strange motion to see on a creature whose arms were so long they had to be kept bent to prevent them from touching the floor. “Animals, people, food. Same thing.”

  “Who is your Father of Storms?”

  “Such ignorance, young pup! Why, he is the one who made all of this. He designed us to be superior in every way.”

  A god. How predictable. Clearly this creature’s deity had not paid much heed to aesthetics when he had been doing his designing. And she was one of them? Was this truly how she translated in this world? “I have survived perfectly well without eating them.”

  “And you are weak for it.”

  “I don’t feel very weak.”

  “Just you wait. Once you have tasted pintrata meat…” his eyes glazed briefly as he compressed his lips. “And don’t feel sorry for them. They wear their uniforms and worship their cherished leader, but they are no good.”

  Cherished leader? That did explain the paintings of the person she had seen in almost every prison corridor. They had mentioned his name to her, but she had believed they had been speaking of a god rather than a man of flesh and blood. !Candorat, they called him.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Ravendasor. Rav, if you like. You?”

  “Artemi.”

  He frowned. “What sort of name is that?”

  “Better than Rah-ven-da-sorr.”

  He grinned broadly and lobbed a pile of folded clothes at her. “I’ll call you Emmi. Makes more sense. Put those on once you’ve bathed and come for a walk with me. You’ll find yourself no prisoner here.”

  After losing some time in finding the appropriate washing materials, Artemi did as instructed and joined Rav in the hallway beyond. Perhaps hallway was not quite the correct word. Cavern would have been a better one. Overhead, great bands of black rock reached upward from the walls and toward a ceiling many hundreds of feet high above them. Faraway hammocks swung in the mists of the uppermost reaches, and it was clear that the weight of full-grown bodies slumbered within them.

  “Bats,” Artemi said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re just overgrown… bats. Though I suppose I am too.”

  He frowned at her, his great brows drawing downward enough to make even blacker shadows on his cheeks. “I don’t know what bats is. Is it good?”

  Artemi pulled her mouth to one side. “I suppose. When it’s dark. Can you see in the dark?”

  “No. But I can hear a damn sight better than those pintrata can. The way they thump about – hey, you know you’re not too noisy for a pup that’s been raised by yrendu.”

  “Yrendu?”

  Rav paused in his walk. “You know – ah, they swing in the trees. Wingless but tailed.”

  “Monkeys?”

  “If that’s what you call them.” His lips thinned and he resumed his walk again, gesturing to a mound of buildings that glowed beneath their path. “That is the main part of the city. This causeway takes us right to the centre of it. It’s a long walk, but it would be impolite of me to fly and leave a young thing like you behind.”

  “You are able to fly with those… things? They have so many holes in them, I-”

  “Quite finished insulting me? Yes, they still work. I may be old and worn, but these wings can carry two of me well enough. Ah, let’s try it!”

  “Wai-”

  Without warning, Ravendasor had snapped a wing around her and leapt from the walkway into the cold breezes below. Artemi’s mind scrambled for the Blazes by instinct, and she gasped when she found they were not there. To her dismay, her eyelids refused to squeeze themselves shut as the air whistled past her ears, as if they wanted to see as much of this death as possible. Burn it! She was not even sure if she could be reborn in this world!

  With a grin slowly spreading across his lumpen features, Rav spread his free wing so that its hundred creases were filled and smoothed by the wind it caught. Though three of his fingers could only be described as stretched in appearance, the other three were over a yard each in length. When extended with his arm, his single wingspan must have reached at least as far as the height of two full-grown men. Their descent immediately slowed to a near-elegant spiral, and they glided gently down to one of the roofs in the town beneath. Around them hung a dozen oil lamps to illuminate a dozen doors, as if a rooftop entry were quite a normal phenomenon. More winged creatures circled and swooped above, some even heading for the distant mists at the top of the cavern. How elegant they looked, and how bow-legged.

  “Looking forward to growing your first webs yet, Emmi?” he said with sparkling eyes. “It can become a hunger, flying can.”

  She had flown on wings of Blaze once or twice in the Darkworld, and she had just as surely been torn out of the skies by irksome kanaala. There always seemed to be one or two watching when she wanted to have her fun, but this… who but a hunter could prevent a bird from spreading its feathers to fly? “How long before I can?”

  “Hard to tell how old you are. Another year, perhaps two.” He extended one of his ridiculous arms to open a door. “This way.”

  Artemi followed his instruction and entered the bright hallway as a new tension entered her muscles and made her sinew coil. “I cannot stay here that long. I need to get back home.”

  “Home? To be imprisoned by pintrata again?”

  “No. Somewhere else. Another world. I have family – a husband.”

  “You’re not even old enough to be married, girl. Juggling two mates is no easy task, believe me.”

  Artemi sighed. She had been young when she had left the Darkworld – only just old enough to have regained her memories, and perhaps some of the youth of that body had carried through to this world. “Where I come from, there are only two in a marriage.”

  He screwed up his features. “Only two? Then who carries the babies?”

  “The woman.”

  “The woman?! What?! Is that safe? Or even wise? What if she wants to leave the nest?!”

  Artemi sighed. “She gets attacked by eisiels.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Rav, I need to get back there. Is there anywhere in this world with light – lots of light? Or some sort of energy and power? A gateway? In my world, it was in a cave-”

  “I’m sorry, Emmi, I don’t think we have anything like that here. Taqqa’s the only way to the light that I know of.” Rav pushed open another door and led her into a chamber filled with tables, and more creatures who looked like he did.

  One of the creatures she recognised as her rescuer from the raid on the walled city; the rest were equally as ugly and devoid of smiles. Their chatter broke as they recognised Rav, and their twisted faces appeared to contort even further at the sight of her. Rav took a stool for himself at the head of the largest table, and Artemi really ought to have guessed that he was a leader of sorts. He had that air of arrogance that she had seen - and smelled - many times before. “If you would take that seat before us, please?” He gestured toward the smallest stool, set in the middle of an area of polished stone floor.

  Artemi perched atop it, aware that even the manner in which she did so would probably be viewed as peculiar here. In any
event, it was really very comfortable. Why had she always thought of such seats as poor things for impoverished people? This one was perfectly made for her bat-like backside!

  “This meeting is called to discuss the reintegration of Artemi,” Rav began. “She has been raised by pintrata, knows nothing of our ways, is poorly nourished and weak without the Water of Illumination. What are we to do with her?”

  The most wizened one, with no hair upon her head and wings so full of holes that the light of the lamps shone straight through them, croaked, “What is she good at?”

  “Go on,” Rav urged.

  “I… ah, I can fight with a blade.”

  That prompted some frowns from her new kin.

  “A blade?” Rav asked, “Like a knife?”

  Artemi nodded.

  His mouth twisted. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Don’t you have enemies?”

  Understanding crossed Rav’s brow suddenly. “Ah. We prefer to settle our disagreements with honour and the hands that the Father gave us. You must dispense with your pintrata ways. Weapons are for weaklings.”

  “She knows how to throw a punch or two, Raven,” Artemi’s rescuer said. ‘Learkin,’ Rav had called him. “She’s just too weak for them to do much.”

  Rav rubbed his chin in thought. There was something about him - Artemi could not say quite what – something that reminded her of an old king she had once known. Marteus Ironheart. Marteus – how long had it been since she had conjured that name in her mind? “You think we should make her a Keeper of the Peace?” Rav asked his council. “Once she has her wings and has been given something proper to eat, of course.”

  “Pintrata are immoral vermin. We cannot expect her to know right from wrong, let alone enforce it,” a sharp-nosed and full-lipped advisor hissed. She was just as evidently female as the older woman, but Artemi soon realised that neither of them had any bosoms to speak of. They were just like she was, and just like the men in that area of their bodies. Whatever could the men of this world fill their conversations with if there were no breasts for them to moon over?

  “I do not think this one is immoral,” Rav countered.

  “Don’t be governed by your manhood,” Learkin warned. “Put this one somewhere she can prove herself trustworthy.”

  Ravendasor’s eyes narrowed only slightly, though he did well not to appear insulted by his friend’s comment. “We could have her work at the port. Plenty of things to test a young pup’s strength there. Plenty of lessons in morality.”

  Their conversation soon turned to an argument about the best place for learning of their curious code of honour, and Artemi was left to consider her new problem. If Rav led these people, and he did not know of any gateways to Achellon, or of anything that might resemble one, then who would? “Do you have a place of books? Histories – that sort of thing?” she asked, immediately silencing their debate.

  “We have a library, but a lot of material was burned in a pintrata attack a few years ago,” the youngest man at their table said. His voice squeaked slightly when he spoke, and his wings were crisp and clean as if newly unfurled from a chrysalis.

  “What about another city?” Artemi pressed. “There must be more.”

  “This is our capital,” Rav said calmly. “The most important texts were here. We have started refilling the shelves with records and copies of books from outside, but they’ll never be as… good as the collection we had before. It was a great loss indeed.”

  The creatures around him nodded.

  By the heat of the fires, she could not be trapped here! There had to be some pocket of knowledge to mine somewhere, someone who knew! “Don’t you have scholars?”

  “There is Girrim who would have the time, but she is very old, and half the day she doesn’t even know her own name.”

  The sharp-nosed councillor interjected before Artemi could reply. “Rav, you cannot think to trust this foreigner with Girrim. The old crone’s too important – if this Artemi is bad, we could be opening ourselves up to destruction. Her knowledge-”

  “I do not believe this one is bad.”

  “But-”

  Rav stood from the table, and the air seemed to thicken instantly. “Are you questioning my judgement, Wendala?”

  Wendala rose to face him. “I am.”

  Rav turned to Learkin. “And you?”

  Learkin stood too. “Yes.”

  Whatever was going on?

  A manner of acknowledgement passed between the three, and then Rav hit Wendala squarely in the jaw.

  Artemi had faced male opponents who were not afraid to box with a woman before, but this was without any sort of hesitation or ceremony at all! Wendala fought back of course, though it was clear that she was the weaker opponent. Rav had seemed so much more… chivalrous than this!

  “Stop!” Artemi yelled at them both, “What in the blazed infernos are you doing?! Stop fighting!” But they did not appear to hear her at all. With Wendala conquered, Rav turned to Learkin, who had been watching calmly for the duration of the fight. In truth, every council member seemed to be watching the bout as if it were nothing more than a polite exchange of red leaf cigars.

  Rav clenched his three free fingers and leapt at Learkin with a roar. This was madness! Artemi could stand to watch it no longer. She ran at them to block their clawing and punching, but her progress was impeded by an impossibly long arm of iron. “This is the first lesson you need to learn, pup,” the elderly owner of the arm said quietly, “Don’t interfere with a fight. He must demonstrate his leadership, for it is never taken for granted. The day will come when Learkin is strong enough to defeat Rav, and both men know it. They must battle to know the place the Father of Storms has determined for them.”

  Artemi’s mouth fell open. “They do this every time they have a disagreement? How can they ever achieve anything?”

  “How can you be sure of anyone’s judgement or if the words they speak are truth if they do not fight to prove it? The Father of Storms favours the purest and the strongest. That is why we are the superior species of these lands – of all lands.”

  With the old woman’s last word, Rav staggered back from his duel, shaking his bloodied claw-hand. More blood dripped from his nose and from scratches on one arm. A new tear had been made in his left wing, but the fight was done. Learkin crawled on the floor beneath him, groaning and clutching at his belly.

  Rav’s eyes immediately settled on Artemi’s, but she did not wish to hold his gaze. He was the only one who had offered her kindness in this world of the damned, but he could never be anything other than a monster. He was no Marteus Ironheart, but a people-eating, hideous, brawling monster.

  The rooms that Morghiad had reserved at the inn turned out to be far more pleasant than he would have expected of a village establishment. There was even a sitting area, and the furnishings were made of materials other than the usual timber, bark or sticks. Kalad had taken a cushion to sit upon before the small table, as was the local manner, and Morghiad brought him a carafe full of the local wine. It reminded Morghiad of the taste of iron or some other metal, and he still wasn’t sure if he liked it. He poured some for his son, and settled himself upon the cushion opposite.

  “How did my mother die?” Kalad asked.

  Morghiad shook his head. “She did not. She is very much alive, but has gone into The Crux.”

  “You fell out?”

  His lips formed a passable impression of a smile. “No. No, she had to – she thinks she might be able to bring Tallyn back. We only just – it wasn’t that long ago that we found out.”

  Son and host, the monsters whispered to him. What did that mean?

  “Better if it had been me, eh?” Kalad said, eyebrows raised. He lifted his mug of wine to his lips, and drank most of the contents.

  “No, Kal.” There had been a time, when Morghiad had been without his memories and under the influence of The Daisain, when he had thought Artemi favoured one son over the other. But now he
knew that simply was not true. One had just been easier for her to love. “It would have broken us both just the same, and she would be doing for you or Medea just as she is doing for Tallyn.”

  Kalad began to refill his mug. “Why didn’t you go with her?”

  “I wanted to, but I have another duty of my own. And now I see that you needed me just as much as I need you.”

  “I don’t need you, Morghiad.”

  He looked down at his own drink, and saw there was some sort of tiny insect swimming about in it. It wouldn’t last for long in there. “Did I mention I was attacked on no fewer than four occasions on my way here? Each time, it seemed to be a different group of people who were angry with me. Care to tell me why that might have been?”

  “I hardly need to swear my heart away to one woman, if that’s what you want to instruct me on. Some of us are not made like that.”

  “No. But I do know unhappiness when I see it in my children. Some men get a thrill from being chased and beaten up for their wrongdoings, but I did not see that thrill in your eyes today. I saw a man who wanted someone else to help him end it.”

  Kalad set down his mug with a thump. “That is stupid. If I died, who would look after Danner?” He held Morghiad’s gaze for some seconds, and then broke it to look at the wine. “I can’t die. Not by power or poison, anyway.”

  “So you are happy with this life you have made for yourself?”

  “I am free to wander the earth and lie with a different woman each night. What man would not be happy with that?”

  Well, Morghiad for one, but he decided to keep such opinions to himself. “If you’re truly happy, then I’m glad. I’m not so glad that your happiness is stifling that of others. You’ve upset quite a few of them.”

  Kalad frowned fiercely at him. “Have you considered that their lives might have been miserable before I turned up? Kierina thought herself a wretched creature in her marriage; I performed a service for her.”

  Morghiad thought he ought to have chuckled at that, but could not bring himself to do so. “You are like your mother in some ways. She doesn’t like admitting she’s wrong, either.” He refilled Kalad’s mug. “There is the other business we need to discuss. I am arranging a peace between nations, and I need you to help me with it. It will happen in Astalon. Medea cannot attend herself, and so she has instructed that you represent Calidell.”