Voices of Blaze

by H. O. Charles

  No, if this had been in the Nightworld, it would have been a mark of the part she had played in battle. Being covered head-to-toe in gore was probably something to be proud of down here.

  “We have a long road ahead of us,” Artemi began when she arrived before them. “Do any of you have any questions to ask of me?”

  “What are we going to do about the spiders?” one man asked. There were nods of agreement around him.

  Spiders? Could these have been giant spiders, by any chance? “They will bow before me,” Artemi said with a conviction that surprised even her.

  “Is that so?” the prisoner asked, forehead furrowing.

  “It is so. Those of you who follow me will see it for yourselves. Any more questions?”

  One of the women nodded to her stomach. “When is that coming out? You will be in no state to fight… unless that thing-” She swallowed as she looked to Morghiad.

  “We have another full day,” Artemi lied. The truth was probably closer to one-and-a-half, but she wanted these animals to work hard for her. “I am your only chance – your only freedom, so we had better get to the top sooner rather than later, yes? Now, do you believe in me?”

  “Aye,” said Lefkin, “she has the fortune of Achellon in her blood.”

  “Aye,” said another man, and then a woman, and another ten men. When all of them had said their ayes and begun chanting Fireblade, Artemi knew it was time to march. They ascended the stairs to the next level, where a row of inmates already stood aside for them. Some of them jeered at her, only to be shoved into the walls or thrown into the pit. The others whispered about the spiders, and that they were all surely doomed to die.

  On the level above, the reception was much quieter, and on the level above that, the inmates did not even leave their chambers. As Artemi’s Band progressed up the stairs, the people about her became ever more subdued and the path for her ever wider. There were no clashes of iron bars or thunks of wooden clubs. Instead there was silence, thick and heavy in the air like the fog on an autumn morning.

  The upper reaches of the cavern were certainly older than the lower ones had been. These were made from rock so worn that parts of it were polished to a shine, and the stairs were carved from the stone rather than forged from metal. Even those dipped sharply in the middle from the millennia of footfalls that had happened upon them. At the fiftieth level of that day, a crazed inmate charged at Artemi with a roar. The members of the Band, who had become so used to the calm, were slow to react in stopping him. It fell to Morghiad to tear the man limb-from-limb, and soon the only sound was the inmate’s gargling death rattle.

  On and upward they went, so far in so few hours that Artemi found herself struggling for breath at one point, and had to rest on Lefkin’s shoulder to catch it. She cursed herself for being so unfit, and cursed Morghiad for getting her with child at such a ridiculous time, and then carried on. They passed the most privileged prisoners, whose rooms were situated nearest the chutes where the food was dispensed, and Artemi remarked how innocuous those prisoners appeared. They were not hulking or grizzled. Nor did they bear sharpened teeth. It was almost as if the toughest ones preferred to live lower down.

  At last, the roof of the cavern was in view, and the chambers they passed were notable in their emptiness. One might have thought that rooms so close to the top would have been highly sought after, but these were filled with a finger’s width of dust and hundreds of tiny cobwebs. What, Artemi thought, would be frightening enough to scare the worst criminals of the Sennefhal continent?

  Eventually, they arrived at the entrance to a sloping tunnel, curtained by more cobwebs and pitch dark at the end. Bones lay outside of it; rather a great deal of bones.

  Several of the bandsmen stepped back from the remains when they realised what they were, but Artemi stayed exactly where she was. She and her child either died now, or she died tomorrow and his life would not be one worth living. “Nidori,” she said quietly, “I shall need light.”

  There was a warm pulse against her skin, and almost immediately a blue ball of Blaze appeared before Artemi. “Thank you,” she whispered, before she moved forward into the gloom.

  Morghiad crept alongside her, sniffing at the air and growling at nothing in particular. Behind her, she could hear the shuffling feet of the few inmates who had dared to follow. The dust on the floor was deep enough to reach the ankles of her boots, and the cobwebs low enough to pull at her elbows. Artemi swept them aside gently, and kept her footfalls silent.

  How was it that the creature or creatures that lived here could have ventured beyond this tunnel recently enough to have left the inmates afraid, yet so long ago that the dust could have grown this thick? And then Artemi looked to the ceiling. A thousand shining eyes looked back at her, and she could not help but inhale sharply. The spiders could not have been larger than two fists in size, but their legs and pincers did look terribly sharp. Artemi hissed at them, and they scattered back down the tunnel.

  “Stay close!” she called to her men.

  After wading through ever-deeper levels of dust and broken cobweb, the passage opened out into a chamber as large as any kahr or kahriss’. It was almost entirely circular, but filled to waist level with bones and web and white ash. At the far end was a heavy bronze door, and before that stood an army of black spiders. Some were no bigger than an eyeball, but others were the size of a full-grown man. All of them twitched and blinked and clicked their fangs at the sight of her. The guardian of the gate must have bred somehow – it could be the only explanation. And why not, if the Jade’an line had managed to breed with other creatures from the Darkworld?

  Artemi took a bold step forward to issue a command to the myriad spiders, but something tightened round her middle and stayed her breath. For a moment she looked about for strands of silk - a web that had been spun to tether her, but then the realisation hit. Her son was coming; the movements had begun.

  “No, it is too early!” she hissed.

  Lefkin whispered a, “My lady?” from behind her.

  Her baby could not be ready now! Days and nights may have been hard to tell in this place, but she was sure… how was she sure? Artemi gazed down at her belly; it was definitely smaller than it had been for her other sons. Something was not right, and she had known it from the beginning.

  “My lady?” Lefkin repeated. His voice had a waver to it.

  There was no choice but to carry on, whether she made it to The Crux in time or not. Artemi took a deep breath, and said, “As I am your commander, and as I have the blood of your makers, move aside for us.” She truly had no idea if half-guardian spiderlings would understand her words, but the intent was there in her voice.

  Miraculously, the spiders scuttled aside and most clambered up the walls, and the path to the door was clear. Artemi would have much preferred to stride toward the door like a queen rather than scramble over the mess of bones and dust like a prisoner, and so she reached inside her shirt for Nidori. “Make me a path, and see if you can get that door open.”

  The purple stone pulsed between her fingers, and Artemi was sure there was a living creature in it. Suddenly, the grey and black powder lifted from the ground, and the bones were pulled away from it as if dragged by a thousand unseen hands. The webs tore and parted where they might present an obstacle, and the bronze door beyond began to creak.

  “I don’t believe it!” yelled one of the prisoners.

  “Blessed light of Achellon!” shouted another one.

  “The gods shine on us today!” cried a third, and the sunlight from beyond the door spilled into the chamber. In an instant, it dwarfed the light from the Blaze orb, and the heavy door shuddered to a halt amidst a hundred tiny cascades of dust and rubble. Artemi would have been content to celebrate with the prisoners around her, but another movement already had its grip about her belly, and the sensation was not a comfortable one.

  “Get me out of here,” she said to her eisiel, and with that, he swept her into his witherin
g, oil-covered arms and carried her into the daylight.

  Chapter 18

  Another movement came, but Artemi was close to the cave now. She could almost smell the cocooned bodies that lay about it. “Mor!” she called to her eisiel, and heard him scampering up the rise behind her. The few prisoners who were not busying themselves with killing the last of the guards had rowed her to the island when they had seen she was in no state to do it herself. There had been a delay however, when Morghiad had scuttled up and down the shore and screeched his refusals to get on the boat. Lefkin had been forced to start rowing her away before the eisiel finally decided to join them, but even then Morghiad had crouched in the bows and looked distinctly unthreatening.

  Upon landing on the beach, Artemi had instructed Lefkin and the others to return without her. “We’ll meet again in another life,” she had said with a nod. “Just a moment,” she had said between breaths, “– how is it that you’re not all mad with age?”

  Lefkin had smiled. “When nothing much changes for thousands of years, there’s very little to confuse you. Are you sure you don’t want us to help you-?”

  Artemi had shaken her head. “Where I’m going is not safe for you.” Or rather, she did not want her child left in the hands of criminals, but they did not have to know that. They had said their goodbyes, and Artemi had stumbled toward the crevasse where the white sword had fallen. Luckily for her, it was still there, glistening and bright in the midday sun. Artemi had handed it to Morghiad, had sat down to breathe through another movement across her midsection, and had then made her way toward the cave.

  When she reached the giant spider, it bowed obediently before her, though it did twitch and lift two of its legs as Morghiad slithered past it. Soon they arrived at the warm and welcome glow of the gateway, and a well of relief bubbled up inside Artemi’s heart at the sight of it.

  She withdrew Morghiad’s white blade slowly enough to make it sing, and dragged it across the ancient stone that lay beneath the water. A fissure opened up like a crack in the night sky, sucking the radiance from the air and the heat from her bones. Artemi leapt into the growing void, and waited for the world to grow bright once more.

  The brilliance of The Crux fought with the blackness of nothingness for some time, but when it finally won through, it brought with it new sensations of the fiercest heat and angriest fire. Artemi could do nothing but lie paralysed upon the glowing, lifeless ground. Her body felt as if it were burning from the inside out, and it was not the pleasant, joyful and vigorous heat of the Blazes - it was the searing fury of a funeral pyre that burned beneath her flesh. It wanted to cut through her with its heat – to escape. Oh for the love of fire, this was what it was to give birth in The Crux!

  Just then, her eyes caught sight of the purple stone at her neck. It was pulsing fiercely, and the leather cord that held it singed to nothing. The stone rolled off Artemi’s chest before she could catch it, settling into the yellow leaves of the ground with a soft flump. And after that, it began to roll away quite by itself. “Nidori?” Artemi called, but the stone kept moving.

  As she watched, the purple of the stone changed colour, and it swelled outward and grew rapidly. Its edges appeared to soften and its walls to thin as if it were melting, stretching glass. At last, someone stepped out of it – a woman, lean and tall and with skin the colour of red-leaf tea. To Artemi’s eyes, she looked Sokirin.

  “Nidori?” Artemi asked again, but the woman’s eyes widened when she saw something in the trees. Her jaw was slack in horror, and she darted off in a silent panic.

  “Wait- please!” Artemi, pleaded, but it was too late. Her body refused to listen to her commands for it to move, and only her eyes still operated as they should have. She used them to search for her eisiel. “Morghiad?” she croaked between breaths. “Mor?”

  A shadow moved across her vision, and it caused the air about her to stir. That was not right; nothing should ever have caused the air to stir in that place. The shadow began to resolve into a more perceptible shape, but Artemi could not bring herself to look at it. It was too dark and too… horrific. Blazes, but that fire felt as if it would burn through her skin! And worse, she could not feel her son moving anymore. Something was wrong, so very wrong… she needed help…

  Artemi willed it to come to her with all the strength of her mind, and threw every bit of influence that she had at her command into drawing aid from the midst of the Bright Woods. Within moments, it approached her.

  “Silar?”

  He stumbled forward, recognition only spreading across his brow gradually, and he landed upon his knees at her side. There was something different about him; he looked… grimmer somehow, as if his lips no longer had the strength to lift themselves into a smile. “What in bloody li-”

  “I’m having a baby,” she said.

  “I can see that! Blast the skies and their follocking fire-filled eyes…” he continued to list a string of curses. “…Where is Morghiad? Surely he is responsible for this?”

  Artemi’s lungs were flatly refusing her instructions at them to breathe. Was this thing razing its way out? “Yes, but he can’t help. You need to-” She could not utter another word.

  His eyes widened to perfect, white-rimmed spheres. “Me? Me? I don’t know anything about this!”

  She tried to plead with him, but there was no chance to say anything further, as her body finally relinquished its hold upon solidity, and gave way entirely to flame.

  “Tem?” Silar shook her shoulder gently, but her eyelids did not even flutter. Her skin felt hot to his touch, but then that ought to be expected. After all, her body was surrounded in a strange, glowing light of its own. It was peculiar, he thought, how her eyes had been filled with the flames of a blazed bonfire. Perhaps that was normal here, like so many other inexplicable things.

  He glanced to the swelling of her stomach. What was he supposed to do about that? Was it even ready yet? Was he supposed to cut it out or… blazes, she did not expect him to do anything else, did she?

  But before he could think of more questions to ask or consider their answers, the light about her brightened. And it brightened, and brightened to such an extent that Silar had to close his eyes against it. He fell back against the lifeless, lukewarm ground and shielded his face with his arm in an attempt to prevent his eyelids from searing through. And then, in an instant, the light was gone.

  Silar lifted his forehead over his arm to test if it was safe, and then slowly opened one eye. The air was still bright, but not painfully so. Immediately, he scrabbled back to Artemi. There, lying bare and squinting, was an infant upon her stomach. It glowed in the same, peculiar manner as its mother, though it was too bald to have the hair of pure light. Silar went to pick it up, and it wriggled as he held it.

  “Hello, little one,” he said to it, grinning his best grin. He remembered from his time looking after Kalad that children seemed to like smiles. This child was very fortunate that he was so good at smiling. Silar’s thoughts immediately turned to questions about Morghiad, but he quashed them before they could become fully formed. He did not want strange representations of the answers becoming solid and distracting him.

  “So you’re a girl - Artemi will be pleased to have another daughter,” he said to the infant.

  She began to open her eyes, and those contained paler flames than her mother’s had.

  “Now, I suppose I had better start thinking of how to get you and her home. This is no place for anyone to live, believe me. Especially not if you want to do anything fun in your life. That, and I have many things to do in your homeworld.”

  She did not acknowledge his words in any way, which probably meant that she was a fairly ordinary baby in spite of her peculiar glow.

  At that moment, Artemi began to stir. What was she wearing? It looked like a man’s shirt, but it was absolutely caked in blood. With his free hand, Silar did his best to help her up. She blinked for a moment, and then said, “I did not die.”

  “No
, and you have a daughter. Do you want to hold her?” He handed the infant to its mother carefully, and watched as Artemi blinked in surprise.

  Her brow remained furrowed for a moment. “It should not be… I - oh, blazes… no!”

  Silar had not been present at many births, or indeed any, now he came to think on it, but he was quite sure that such a reaction from a new mother was not normal. “Don’t you like her?”

  Artemi’s burning eyes flicked up to meet his. “Don’t you see, Silar? Don’t you recognise her?” Her features softened suddenly. “How can this be? This shouldn’t have been possible.”

  He looked at the child’s face again. Perhaps there was something familiar about her, but as he looked, he saw something else move beyond the trees. Whatever it was looked dark and wrong like a nose hair in a bowl of soup. Silar’s stomach twisted at the sight of it. “What was tha-”

  The thing moved past them again, sweeping the light away with it and obscuring the trees it passed.

  “Tem, I need to get you out of here now.” Silar withdrew his blade slowly.

  Artemi’s face was tear-streaked and flushed. Blazes, what was the woman so upset about? “Put your sword away,” she said softly.

  “There’s something bad here.”

  She fixed him with a stare, and then sighed. “It’s Morghiad.”

  A sudden rush of images descended into Silar’s consciousness then, filling his mind with visions and voices and whispers of the truth. The gift that had been absent in this place was suddenly returned, and Silar could see everything.

  You will understand what is necessary.

  He understood. He understood it all. He saw beyond his memory lapses. He understood the meaning of the dead Law-keepers, and the truth they had revealed to him. That child… And Morghiad… Artemi had made him an eisiel, and this was the end. “We have to kill him. Now.” Silar sprang to his feet and charged toward the last place he had seen the shadow thing.