Voices of Blaze

by H. O. Charles

  Beyond the carriage, one of the guards was providing amusement for the others by duelling with Silar. He only had ten years to him, but already her youngest son was long-limbed and tall enough to be mistaken for an older child. Celysane would have preferred it if he had not shown such an interest in battling people or had proven to be quite so capable at it. After all, his mind would be a far sharper tool than any sword, and far more valuable to him. But his talents were what they were, and at the very least he would be able to defend himself if the situation ever called for it.

  “Cadra is the right place for him, my lady,” House-Captain Berayn said as he approached. “Would be a crime not let him train with the best our nation has.”

  Berayn was a young man with scars everywhere he had skin, except for the area upward of his Adam’s apple. A wielder had once drawn all of the pinh from the cuts he had in his face, and had left him smooth as a new-born babe in that area. Or so he claimed. Friendly wielders were few and far between these days.

  “Cadra is not the safe sanctuary of our home,” Rafhiad said behind them. “It’s full of cutthroats, snakes and deviants.”

  Celysane stifled a giggle. “Then it is a good thing your wife is one of those.”

  Berayn’s eyes widened suddenly and he cleared his throat as he shuffled his feet about.

  “I was referring to my skills as a snake, house-captain. I do hope you think I am not any of the others in that list.”

  “Ah… no, my lady.” His cheeks flushed to a furious shade of crimson. Berayn was one of the few who knew her true occupation, and one of the few who could be trusted with guarding sensitive correspondence.

  “Good thing too,” Celysane said with a smile, and as the last word left her mouth, a cheer rose up from the men who watched Silar’s duel.

  “I win again,” Silar proclaimed, lifting his blade aloft and jumping up and down upon the soft grass. When he saw his mother was watching, he hopped and jogged toward her with a huge grin upon his features. His blond hair flopped in time with his movements. “Are we going now?”

  Celysane nodded. “It’s time to say goodbye. Make it quick.” She made her own goodbyes to Sahlke and Sorann, surprised again to be embracing her eldest sons as men rather than boys, and then gave her husband a final kiss. “Visit us,” she said firmly to him.

  “Of course I will,” he replied, and held her hand as she stepped into the carriage after her son. The door shut with a noisy click of the unoiled locking mechanisms inside it, and Rafhiad gently clasped her fingers atop the sill. She was given a final opportunity to admire his ultramarine-blue eyes, and the carriage lurched to break their contact as the horses began to move.

  Celysane drank in the sights of the Forllan grounds as they swept past at an ever-increasing rate, noting how the plants that sprawled all along the edges of the avenue had outgrown their bed limits yet again. It had only been a week since Therwin and his team of gardeners had chopped everything back, almost to the soil. The greenery of this place was forever trying to reclaim the land for itself, and she half imagined that her home would be entirely consumed by the forests when she next returned.

  “Mother?” Silar said from beside her.

  “What is it?”

  “Cheer up.”

  Celysane did as soon as she saw that grin on his face, and she possessed enough of the talent of foresight to know that his smile would charm more women in the years to come. “You will like it at Cadra,” she said, putting an arm around his shoulders. “Sometimes I worry just how much fun you will have there.”

  Their journey took them through the Southern Falls, along the raging rivers that fed them and into the ancient oak forests of central Calidell. Along the way, they stopped at a comfortable tavern, where Celysane was permitted some privacy to deal with the nalka that had settled itself into her bones with such stubbornness. The house guards were good enough to leave her undisturbed during this time, and kept Silar occupied with the sword training he seemed to so enjoy. Between pangs, she would watch them fighting in the gardens at the rear of the inn, and think upon the things she still had to teach him about whispers and trust.

  On one occasion when she returned to her bed, she noticed a pile of parchments and scrolls that she had left beside it, and it was a while before she realised why her eye was repeatedly drawn back to them. The parchment at the base of the pile was brown with age, browner still in the creases, but had remained sealed since the day it had been written; it was the note given to her by her late teacher.

  Zandra, a shrunken woman of some thousand years of age and somewhat wandering lucidity, had been an expert on the behaviour of men and women. She had taught Celysane extensively about character and drive, about wants and needs and timing of action. Those were the lessons Celysane intended to pass on to her son, assuming he did not become too distracted by his sword training.

  But that note was not to be opened and read unless she had great need. Zandra had been very emphatic about that phrase, whatever it had meant. Now was not a time of great need, she told herself as another pang of nalka built up inside her.

  Celysane curled up amongst the bed linen, and dreamed about those first steps she had made in becoming a spy for the King of Calidell. Men at court had told her she was pretty, but she had never wanted to resort to using her body or looks to extract information from those she spied upon. Half of those with plots underfoot and secrets in hand were hot-blooded women in any case, which so many spies – including women themselves - seemed to be wilfully ignorant of. And so Celysane had made a point of studying other methods of extracting useful information. Well, perhaps she had used her looks just once, but that had been in convincing Acher’s spymaster, Lisearon, to send her to the scholar Zandra.

  Through those years of instruction, Celysane was permitted freedom from the pressure to wed, and was afforded the opportunity to begin building a network of her own. After that, she had the means to dig up enough dirt on any lord of Calidell to find excellent excuses not to marry him. Her parents’ despair had been acute in those early years, but when they saw that she was both content and fabulously, if inexplicably, wealthy, their worries soon abated. And then there had been Rafhiad Forllan. Celysane smiled to herself as she recalled the day they had first met, and she soon fell asleep in spite of the pain.

  There was a flash of light, and Celysane was seated beside her son in the carriage again. Out of the window, she could see the black walls of Cadra emerging from beyond the trees. Blazes, but she had forgotten how huge that great lump of stone was! It was a prison, she thought; it looked like one, smelled like one, and it kept all of its inhabitants locked inside until they bargained something valuable enough to escape. She regarded her son and questioned her thinking for the twentieth time. Was this really a place for someone so innocent?

  “Wow! Is it made out of a mountain?” Silar exclaimed.

  “No. It was all built by the hands of men. Some of them fell during the final stages of its construction, and they say that the distance was so great that those men could not heal from it.”

  Silar blinked wide-eyed at it, almost in admiration. “No army could ever get in that!”

  “Not while you’re inside it, they won’t.” She prayed they did not. Acher was not averse to starting wars for no reason, and certainly foolish enough to bring those wars right to his own doorstep.

  Their carriage made its way through tunnels that rang with the sound of hoof falls, up and into the twisting green stone streets and through the piles of houses that had been stacked atop one another. Silar’s upper body dangled out of the carriage window for much of it, but he reeled himself back in when the carriage juddered and stopped suddenly. “A wheel fell off,” he said with his brow furrowed. Sure enough, when Celysane peered between the lace curtains, she spied one of her guards standing over and glaring at a gilt wheel as if doing so might make it turn again.

  House-Captain Berayn opened the carriage door and held out his hand. “The locking nut is broke
n, my lady. It is going to take us an hour or two to find a new one.”

  She fought hard not to grind her teeth against each other. “We cannot wait here. We’ll ride the rest of the way to the castle and wait there for our things.”

  “My lady, we have no saddles for you to use on the carriage horses, and we need to keep some guards here with your possessions while the carriage is fixed. Hendray and Lahs could accompany you on foot, if it pleases you.”

  Walk? She was not dressed for walking, and she had been an accomplished bareback rider in the days before her marriage. She frowned at him to demonstrate her dissatisfaction, but took hold of Silar’s hand. “Come, at least we will see more of the city this way.” Not that she particularly wished to. One of the poor areas was near here, and it was known to be a haunt of pickpockets and swiftknives.

  Silar hopped and bounded beside her with the endless energy he seemed to have, pausing occasionally to stare at a precariously balanced abode or highly polished section of guardrail. Celysane longed to see the city with fresh eyes as he did, but she could only perceive the decay and the vulgarity of it all. She had many memories of this place, and few of them were positive ones.

  “Where are the trees?” Silar asked eventually.

  “Cadra does not have trees inside it, but there are some gardens in the castle courtyards.” Nothing like the greenery of their home, of course.

  Silar seemed satisfied by that, and continued with his visual appraisal of the citizens. Cadrans were, for the most part, polite enough to nod or avert their gaze, except for one little girl. Her face was covered in dirt, and her hair might have been red if it had not been caked in lumps of mud, but she grinned at them as if none of that mattered a whit.

  Celysane stopped. “Hello, young l-”

  “I’m a mighty pirate!” the girl announced, withdrawing a wooden sword from behind her back, “Prepare to die!” She held her weapon out as if to skewer them and narrowed her dark eyes.

  Silar folded his arms and snorted just as Lahs attempted to shoo the little girl away.

  “Wait-” Celysane began.

  “Temi! Temi! Get back here, you little - Ah, forgive me, my lady.” A man with hair a shade darker than the girl’s said as he jogged toward them. His face was pink with exertion and his speech somewhat breathless. “My daughter refuses to understand the rules of propriety.” He bowed quite gracefully. “I hope she did not trouble you.”

  “No, it was no trouble-” But the man and his little girl had disappeared into the crowd before she could finish her sentence. That was another thing Celysane had not missed about this city. Everyone was in too much of a hurry to listen to the ends of conversations they had started. She hitched her skirts up to keep them from soaking up any more mud, and continued on her way.

  When they finally made it to the curled porcupine of a castle that lay at the centre, she was glad to see that someone had anticipated her arrival by providing her with two handmaids. Oh, how she longed for a bath! And clean clothing!

  “Celysane!” a lady’s voice called from the shadows. “Is that really you?” The woman who emerged was chestnut-haired and clad from neck to ankle in deep blue silks. Apart from her face and fingers, the only visible skin was a sizable portion of her décolletage.

  “Lady di Certa.” Celysane gave a polite nod.

  “Well, it is. And after so many years away from court!” Erali di Certa looked pointedly at Celysane’s hair. “I did not realise the fashions of the southern provinces were so… wild in nature.” Her eyes darted to the muddy hemline. “And walking in the streets! How very… connected to the earth you have become!”

  “Thank you, Erali.” Don’t dare to insult me. “We had the misfortune of a broken wheel on our carriage, but it afforded us a little exercise. Exercise is so good for one’s soul and body, wouldn’t you agree?” She smiled thinly.

  Erali’s smile was equally as feigned. She had put on a noticeable amount of weight about her middle, and not even the richest of blue silks could have hidden it. But Celysane was irritated with herself as soon as she uttered the words. She was capable of playing far more sophisticated games than these! Veiled insults were the toys of bores and easily distracted fools. No, she knew enough about the secrets of Erali’s family to cut far, far deeper.

  “I do agree, Lysa,” Erali replied, “But look at this young man you have brought with you! Isn’t he handsome!”

  Silar puffed out his chest and grinned broadly.

  “You know,” Erali continued, “In a few years he would make a fine match for one of my younger daughters – not Aval – no, she should take the eldest brother. Is it Sahlke? I forget. Wouldn’t that be something: houses Forllan and di Certa, joined?”

  “My eldest is Sorann, and he shall marry a woman of his choosing rather than anyone else’s. All my sons will.”

  Erali sighed. “Then your House is doomed.” And with that, she strode back into the murk of the castle.

  “Our House isn’t doomed, is it?” Silar asked quietly.

  “No, it is most certainly not. And trust me, you do not want to join with them. Di Certa is a sinking ship if ever I saw one.”

  When they found their chambers in the guest quarters, Celysane’s first point of business was to write to her husband and inform him that they had arrived safely. Almost as soon as she had lifted the quill however, a knock came at her door. No rest for the subversive, it seemed.

  “Lord Slight, my lady,” said the voice beyond.

  At her admission, Lisearon Slight entered the room in his curious silk slippers. Footwear had always been the one luxury the spymaster permitted himself, whilst the rest of his outfit remained plain and unremarkable. You can always measure a man by the price of his boots, Zandra had said with a chuckle, but few could properly measure this one. Lisearon was dark-haired and bearded like the king he so admired, but was closer to a snake in shape. Slight by name, slight by nature.

  “Bored of childbearing, I hear,” Lisearon said, “Have you returned to play with the scorpions and the nighthawks again?”

  “I am retired,” Celysane replied.

  Lisearon inclined his head. “Spies as good as you never retire.”

  “I’ve no desire for it.” She gestured for him to take a seat before her, and he obliged.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “My youngest son excels at the sword. This is the only place where he may excel further.”

  Lisearon’s mouth rose into a half smile. “You always hated blades and sweat and blood, Lysa. I know you too well.”

  “Children change a woman. Even me.”

  The room filled with a brilliant, white light, and Celysane was seated beside her son upon the sun-dappled terrace. It afforded an excellent view of the fountain courtyard below, offered the two of them fresh air, and was far enough from prying ears for their lessons to proceed unhindered.

  “The idea that we make decisions based upon logic is an illusion,” Celysane said. “We are intuitive beings, and some of us are guided more by emotions than others. You must learn to identify who is governed more fiercely by emotion and who is not.”

  “What about him?” Silar nodded to an ebony-haired boy who was seated on the edge of the fountain. He was hunched over the water, though he seemed to be looking at nothing in particular within it. There were no other children with him, and he wore no expression at all. His only company was a maid and several guards who kept their distance. Celysane supposed that he was the Kahr Morghiad.

  “Why don’t you go and challenge him to a duel? Then you can return to me with your assessment of him.”

  Silar immediately nodded and bounded off to his chambers to find a weapon. Within moments he was running across the courtyard and directly toward the lonesome boy. It was only then that Celysane noticed – blazes, he’d taken a full-size sword with him!

  There was another flash of light, and Celysane was sitting at her desk in her room. Time had passed, though how much was impossible to tell.
What was…?

  “He’s really strange, mother. He has no friends.”

  “I think he needs a friend,” she said. “Don’t give up on him. Now, logic or emotion?”

  Silar pulled a face. “I don’t think he has any emotions.”

  “Are you sure?”

  His grimace deepened. “Mmm, I think so.”

  “I think so is not the same as being sure. Get to know him, measure his expressions. Look for the tiniest things. If he wants to communicate with you, he will have a way of doing it.” Celysane gave him a squeeze about his shoulders. “Now, I have business of my own to attend to and it is time for your bed.”

  “Mother…”

  “Bed,” she said firmly. “It’s late already.”

  Silar eventually complied and sloped off to his chamber next door. Of course, he would be jovial and full of smiles again in the morning. Celysane could see that as clearly as the black rock walls around her: not even this cold prison of stone would ever get her boy down.

  For a while after he had left, she checked over the correspondence she had received across the previous two days. She had been here three months, and her contacts had only just got it into their heads that they should direct their notes to Cadra instead of her husband’s home. There was nothing of particular interest, however: the usual collection of romantic gossip, or the words of lords who intended to rule but would probably never amount to much more than a puff of smoke upon the winds. She filed the more controversial summaries in case they became important later, and turned her attentions to composing a letter to her mother.

  Abruptly, her thoughts were broken when a man stumbled into the chamber and shut the door behind him.

  “Lord di Certa?” Celysane stood. She had dismissed the guards to get some well-earned rest, but that did not mean she was open to all visitors. “What is the meaning of th-”

  Before she could finish, he took bold strides toward her, grabbed her by the throat and thrust her against the wall. Celysane could only splutter from the shock.