Voices of Blaze

by H. O. Charles

  “We must find something to eat,” Morghiad said. “I saw a room with food in it, though it was guarded by other inmates. I imagine there will be a price for it.”

  Artemi nodded, and they departed to find the room. On the way, he asked Artemi how long the prison had been in existence.

  “I remember people talking about it in the Era of Half Light,” she said. “But it may have been here longer than that. Perhaps there are even prisoners who have been here longer than that.” Her eyebrow rose.

  “I imagine there are a fair few more criminals in here now than there would have been then. More people in the outside world, and more crimes being committed.”

  “You are a declinist, Morghiad.”

  “A what?”

  “You always think the world is turning into a worse place.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Blazes, husband. People have been complaining about this and that getting worse since the first day I landed in this world. Oh, it’s not as good as it used to be! It never is because it never was. Things don’t degrade like that. They just change, and we think they’re worse because we cling too hard to the old ways.”

  He shrugged. “I did not realise such a reasonable state of mind had a word to describe it.”

  “All natures have words to describe them, but yours is not reasonable.”

  Morghiad grinned at her, and for a moment he thought he saw her smile back. There was something warm in those dark eyes of hers, at least. Warmth of the fires, please let the child be well so that she could smile again. But of course, that would also be the worst thing for her in here; giving birth to a kanaala child would kill her, and Morghiad would be left with a motherless babe to somehow smuggle from this place.

  This is no prison for us, chanted the monsters, Walls of air and people of paper. All will bow when our cub comes of age.

  Our cub? Morghiad asked them, but they had resumed their distant chatter at the back of his mind.

  When they arrived at the guarded room, they were met by a man and a woman, both dressed in filthy rags and holding nail-spiked cudgels.

  “Let me deal with this,” Morghiad whispered to Artemi.

  But she responded with a terse “No,” and he dared not argue with her. The best he could do was frown severely, and turn to greet the guards.

  “New meat,” said the woman guarding the room, looking him up and down, “And such pretty, new clothes.”

  “We are hungry,” Morghiad replied, but decided to leave it at that.

  The female guard raised her eyebrows. “Oh? And are we supposed to do something about that?” She cocked her head to one side as she gave him another appraisal. “I suppose, from the look of you, you could be useful.”

  “Keep your eyes above belt level, bitch,” Artemi hissed.

  But the woman ignored her. “You would make a good addition to the Reduvian Band,” she said, nodding to Morghiad. “That little mouse next to you, not so much.”

  The enticement was too much for Artemi, and she leapt at the woman without waiting for a second breath. The cudgel was duly kicked out of the woman’s hands, and her feet knocked out from under her shortly after. Artemi raised the cudgel to begin beating her new enemy with it, but Morghiad caught her hand before she did.

  “You said Reduvian Band?”

  The woman blinked at Artemi in surprise, and kept her eyes fixed there as she said, “Yes. We run things on the seventy-sixth level all the way through to the sixty-first. Perhaps your mouse should join us after all.”

  Her words were enough to make Artemi lower her weapon, and she proceeded to walk through to the food-filled chamber without waiting for Morghiad to follow.

  “You said Reduvian – where do you get that name?”

  The female prisoner sighed and dusted herself off as she stood, but it was her male companion who spoke this time. “Febain Reduvi is our leader. He’s a good man – looks after us.”

  For a moment, all Morghiad could see was a single hair amongst the man’s stubble, and his eyes focussed on it so hard that he almost thought he could burn it away. Febain. Oh, he and Febain had some unfinished business alright. Morghiad could feel his fists clenching tightly enough to crack diamonds.

  “Husband,” Artemi said with a calm voice. “Come and eat something for your strength.”

  Morghiad forced the thinnest of smiles, and gave a polite nod to the two prisoner-guards before he entered the chamber. The food inside was enough to ruin his appetite, if he had been in a state to conjure one, though he really should not have been surprised. There were skewers of unidentifiable meat, which he imagined were more likely to be rat than anything else, there were rotting vegetables, pieces of stale bread and a large number of roasted insects.

  Artemi was nibbling on one of the skewers as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Perhaps it had been normal in the Nightworld.

  “What were you thinking?” he asked her in a whisper. “You cannot just start fights.”

  She paused between bites. “It got us in here. It establishes our position. Now we have access to food whenever we want it, and I can feed my child.”

  Morghiad took hold of the skewer. “With this? You do know what this is?”

  “It’s better than pintrata meat,” she murmured, and took it back from him to lick clean.

  After that, Morghiad watched her taste and try everything in the room as if it were a fine banquet, while he nibbled on the few items that did not look as if they had been dredged from a cess pit. Eventually, a realisation hit him. “You knew.”

  “Knew what?” she asked, pulling rotted lettuce apart to get at the leaves that were still green.

  “You weren’t surprised that he was here.”

  Artemi glanced at him briefly, and then returned to her project while she spoke. “Silar had him sent here. It was the best thing to do, given the situation.”

  “What situation?”

  She was silent, so Morghiad went to her and lifted her chin to make her look him in the eye. “What situation?” he asked again.

  Artemi pushed his hand away. “We discovered that he was Hedinar’s half-brother. Your uncle. It made no sense to have you tearing pieces out of him.”

  He could not breathe. He could not muster the strength to do it, and his lungs seemed only to want to tighten. In his mind, the creatures of shadow were howling. “We?” he managed to splutter. “And you kept this from me? All these years?”

  “You were… fragile at the time. I had already hurt you enough; I did not want you to suffer any more. And as the years went by, I thought it better that you did not know. Silar agreed with me.”

  Morghiad looked to the floor, where a thin white seam of stone cut through the dark blue. The one feature he had always loved about Artemi – the one thing that she had before anyone else – was her unabashed, unflinching honesty. She had always been such a terrible liar that it was laughable whenever she had tried, and he had adored her for it. But this… had he been wrong about her?

  “It does not matter if he and I share blood,” he said eventually. “What he did to you is unforgivable.”

  “It was almost a century ago.”

  “That does NOT MATTER!” He thumped the table he leaned against, causing the dishes and the food to clatter and squelch.

  Artemi only paused in her eating briefly, but his outburst prompted the two Reduvian Bandsmen to poke their heads in. Morghiad apologised to them, and began asking as many questions as he could about the things Artemi knew of Febain: which parent had he shared with Hedinar, how had she discovered this, where and from whom?

  “We have problems more important to solve than Febain Reduvi,” Artemi said when she had finished her explanations. “We must get out of here. There is too much at stake, and if we do not need to escape for the sake of a fourth child, there are still two alive who do need us. Forget Febain.”

  But a plan had already laid out its steps in Morghiad’s mind – a plan that could solve two problems a
t once. He did so like to have plans. They calmed his nerves and quieted the Shade creatures, and he even found himself sensible enough to nibble on some of the rat meat. Artemi was a very beautiful woman, he thought as he took his second tentative bite, and sometimes it was infuriating that he found her fire hair, stubborn-set jaw and porcelain skin so intoxicating a combination. Perhaps if she had been less interesting to him, he might have been able to remain angry at her for keeping such secrets, but he could not.

  Chapter 16

  Artemi swung her legs out of the bed, hauled on her breeches and began doing up the fastenings. When she reached the top two buttons, she found that they would not meet with the holes. She frowned, pulled the fabric tighter about her waist and tried again. It was no good; the fastenings would not close at all. “Hmm,” she said to no one in particular.

  “Are you alright? What’s wrong? What is it?” Morghiad all but sprang from his sleeping place on the floor to begin fussing over her.

  “Either I am getting fat very quickly, or there is a babe in me.”

  They both looked down at her stomach. There was no discernable curve of a pregnancy there yet, but it did appear to be fuller than it had been before, and Artemi was sure she could feel something moving about inside it. Her only concern had been that the something was her gut struggling to digest the awful food they had in this place. But this was as good a confirmation as any she could receive, now that she was quenched.

  Try as hard as she might, she still could not sense anything from this child. Nothing at all, and nor could Morghiad. She had wondered if it was possible to carry a ghost, and what the outcome would be if she did, but that thought had only resulted in a sleepless night full of horrifying dreams.

  Artemi still could not settle her unease about it though. Something was most definitely wrong with this, and more so than it had ever been with Kalad. It did not feel like it was Tallyn, or at least it was not as fidgety as he had been at this stage. Nor was it as large; their first two sons had been large.

  It was surely unforgivable that she had hoped this child might be Tallyn, and she now felt regret that it was not her first son again. Artemi sighed quietly to herself. Whatever it was that had taken up residence inside her, it was a part of Morghiad. And for that reason alone she would love it regardless. It.

  Him, she corrected herself.

  “Can you feel any kicks yet?” Morghiad asked, placing a hand against her abdomen.

  “Perhaps. Tiny ones. I’m not sure.”

  He moved his hand up to cup her face. “Are you going to make me beg to bed you? I want to experience this with you again, and feel all the things you feel. It is cold out here – my mind is empty and dead without you in it.”

  “I am not ready.”

  The hurt in his eyes made her regret her words immediately, but she could not take them back. She had spoken the truth.

  “We will have to-”

  “I know,” she said firmly.

  “Are you punishing me?” he asked as she withdrew from him.

  Artemi threw on her bodice and began tying the laces, which were also far too tight now. “No,” she replied. “I need some different clothes. These no longer work.”

  Her husband regarded her for a while, paying special attention to the area where her midriff was partially exposed, and where her swollen breasts fought to remain where they should. “Those clothes seem to be doing an excellent job,” he said with the broadest of smiles. “You look very attractive indeed.”

  Attractive would not serve her in a prison like this. Attractive would not get her and her husband out of it. It was looking increasingly likely that she would die in here, and with Morghiad’s obsession with Febain, she was growing concerned about his willingness even to seek freedom for their child. In the days that they had been underground, Morghiad had already ingratiated himself with enough members of the Reduvian Band to earn them a chamber of their own and access to slightly less unsightly food. Well, ingratiated was not the most accurate word for it; rather, he had taken to engaging in fist fights with as many of the men as possible.

  Artemi could not help but recognise an increasing number of similarities between he and Ravendasor. She had tried to aid him in those fights wherever possible, but Morghiad was becoming increasingly adept at leaving the lesser opponents for her or shoving her out of the way altogether. And now that she knew she was definitely with child, fighting her way to freedom was going to be near-impossible, if not unwise.

  They had not encountered Febain yet, which was probably a small mercy. She fully expected Morghiad to foam at the mouth and rave when that meeting occurred, and she had no idea how she could prevent it.

  “You are to stay here today,” Morghiad said as he dressed himself. “I will bring food to you later.”

  She folded her arms. “I will not stay here.”

  “If you come with me, looking the way you do, you will be more of a liability than an aid. I will have to protect you out there. More eyes will follow you than already do – you know how men are around pregnant women. And these men, many who have not had a woman in centuries… I cannot risk it. Stay here; stay hidden.”

  Her arms dropped by her sides. Morghiad had never left her side during a single one of her pregnancies – not for a moment. This was not him; he would never have made such a decision. Her mouth worked soundlessly.

  “Artemi, please?”

  “Fight to save what you love, never to destroy what you hate,” she said finally. “Those were your father’s words. Put aside this business with Febain. Stay with me.”

  His brow creased as he shrugged into an old coat he had acquired from one of his new friends. “I am doing this to save what I love. I’m destroying him to save you. We can get to the top of the prison in a matter of hours with his bandsmen. I am close to taking over now - trust me.”

  “Morghiad-”

  He put a hand to her shoulder. “Don’t you care about him?” he said, nodding to her belly. “I am asking you, for me - keep him safe with you here. We were lucky with Kalad, but we might not be so lucky again. Don’t put this one at risk too.”

  “But Mor-” Her protests finished there. She had never meant to put either of them at risk. Her husband knew that, didn’t he? Did he think she was a poor mother? Had Queen Dorinna been a better one? Artemi fought back her tears before they could dampen her eyes, and nodded obediently. After Morghiad kissed her forehead and left, she curled up on her bed and tried to dream of happier times.

  Artemi wandered from verdant wood to white palace and yellow desert, each time with her handsome husband at her side. It was the husband who had promised himself to her completely, and the husband who understood what her freedom to choose her own path truly meant. He had always accepted, and even admired, her independence in every situation. I can never hope to own you, he had always said, but this Morghiad was changing before her very eyes. In her dreams, she recalled how she would run a hand over her swollen belly, and smile with the knowledge that one of his babies grew inside it. But now…

  Fire arced overhead, sending sprays of orange sparks and blue smoke across the purple skies. There was the sound of swords clanging, fireballs exploding and men yelling in anger. The ground rumbled as another wielder strike hit it.

  “You’re pregnant! You must go back!” Silar shouted at her from across the field. He was waving his sword emphatically.

  “That is not possible. I can’t be!” she yelled back.

  “It is and you are. Get off the battlefield. You are no good to us here.”

  She looked around at the guts and the heads and arms and blades jammed in every one of them. The place was a bloodbath, and Artemi was already covered in some of the mess of it. She withdrew one of her gale swords and readied herself to advance deeper into the melee. “These men need me,” she called to Silar.

  In the blink of an eye, he was standing before her. He gave her a gentle shove backward toward the lines where the reserves were standing – toward t
he tents. “Leave!” he said.

  Artemi shook her head. “I am needed.”

  “Not. Any. More!”

  Not needed anymore? Was this it? Yes, this was it – she had flouted the rules of The Dedicated too many times, and this time she had proven herself to be truly unworthy. Selfish and now useless too. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “I am who you need me to be.”

  When she awoke again, Morghiad was still absent, and the silence gave her time to reflect upon her visions. No longer needed. Useless to the world was what she had become, and she recalled her words to Tallyn Hunter in the decades before. She was not supposed to have been tamed and made to carry babes; she was a Kusuru. Burn her blazed biology! She had never asked to be born a woman! At least in the Nightworld a woman could still fight and lead and do just as she liked without fear of innocents getting caught up in it all. At least their women had injras with whom they could leave their young ones – people who dedicated their lives to raising children well. And at least neither woman nor injra there would fear losing their identity through it.

  Of course, she did not want to leave this son with another mother, and she did not wish to uproot any feelings of love she had for him. And that was precisely the problem: she had no choice in what she wanted or how she felt. No, her blazed heart always seemed to have that mapped out for her, usually in a manner that caused as much trouble as possible!

  Fine, she thought to herself. She could not be much more use to the world in this life, but she could be of some use to her son. She would see to it that he reached full term, and she would see to it that his father retained at least some perspective on Febain. And she would have to put some dogged effort into bridging the gulfs that had opened up between she and her husband. It meant forcing herself to forget what that woman had done with him, but Artemi would simply think of it as another battle into which she would run with teeth gritted and eyes narrowed.

  There was not much time now to make things right.

  Artemi’s mood had altered significantly in the last two days. She smiled at him frequently, reminisced about the past they shared, and had even permitted him to hold her at night. Today, upon returning from his latest encounter with Febain’s men, she had removed all his clothing and began washing it like the most dutiful of laundry maids. Where she had found so much clean water and soap, he could not fathom, but it was not her most peculiar act. On the previous day, he had returned to find her scrubbing the stone walls of the chamber from ceiling to floor, while the bed had been deconstructed and rebuilt, and the entire mattress re-stuffed.