The Frostfire Sage

by Steven Kelliher

  “I have a reckoning with that one,” Valour said, nodding, and Shadow did not know which Ember he meant.

  “He isn’t the only one you need to be concerned with,” Shadow said. “The Sage girl is strong. Very strong. The other Embers are skilled. Of the pair, one is bold enough to earn it and the other fierce enough to cover her recklessness. And then there is the Rockbled.”

  “A Rockbled …” Valour seemed almost amused. “Fighting with Embers. Now that would be a sight.”

  “It is,” Shadow agreed, though she was not nearly as amused.

  “Yes.” Valour nodded. “They are strong, one and all. Some more than the others. Reyna and Ve’Ran will be too much for the Shadow Kings. They might even be too much for the Witch, depending on how far she’s truly fallen. For me?” He turned his palms up, examining them with less uncertainty than he had before. He let the thought hang, and then a new shadow passed across his face.

  “They do not have their brightest star with them,” he said. “She is in the south again.” He tilted his head as if listening, searching. A wry smile crept across his face.

  “I thought Reyna was the most powerful Ember the world over,” Shadow said.

  “There are older Embers in the Valley core,” Valour said. “And one who was lost in the deserts. Experienced flames. Potent flames. Though,” he dipped his chin, “perhaps not quite as hot as that one, even if better aimed. He is, after all, his mother’s son.”

  Shadow’s face screwed up in confusion. She shook her head.

  “This ‘bright star,’” Shadow started. “Is she the one who turned you from the desert? The one who rattled you so, changed you so you had to resort to stealing the rest of a life you already destroyed?” She let it linger, expecting him to deny it or to try to explain it away.

  “Yes,” he said, surprising her. “Yes, she is.”

  And then Shadow remembered. She was taken back to the broken timbers of the Sage of Balon Rael’s fortress at Center. She remembered when the Eastern Dark had arrived to take his living Everwood blade, the brightest ever forged. She remembered the way the Landkist of the Valley had gasped and shaken when he referenced his recent time amidst the western dunes, Ve’Ran most of all.

  “The sister of Ve’Ran,” Shadow stated more than asked. “She beat you.” All this time, she had thought that surely the Red Fox, the Red Waste or whatever he called himself in recent days, was the culprit. But the Eastern Dark truly had been rebuffed by a Landkist, and not one with a burning sword.

  “None beat me, Shadow,” he said derisively. “For here I stand.” She thought to say something and then thought better of it. Survival. The trick was in knowing when to hold back.

  “Still,” the Sage continued. “She could prove invaluable. Perhaps she could broker peace between us—her sister and me.”

  “You said she was in the Valley,” Shadow said. “A long way to go in so short a time.”

  Valour cracked a smile that was lit in a macabre glow as the sun peeked up from its bottomless, airy depths.

  “Oh, Shadow,” he said in that silky, sickening way of his. “You should know. There are other roads than these.”

  It was all a lot more ordinary than Iyana had expected, and she felt a coloring of shame for the thought.

  They were gathered around a small pyre built of wood a little thinner and a little darker than those they would build in Hearth or Last Lake. Sen’s wrapped body had been placed on top, resting with his hands at his sides. Iyana did not know how large the Faey settlement was, but it seemed to her there were more here than could have resided comfortably in the smattering of modest homes and hollowed out trunks she had seen thus far.

  “The Faey are less like squirrels nesting in cracks and hollows and much more similar to our desert ancestors,” Kenta told her, leaning in. “These folk have come from the surrounding villages and hunting clutches.”

  “Would they do it for any Faey burial?” Iyana asked, marking the faces. She did not see outward signs of mourning. The pale cheeks were dry, many-colored eyes glinting with the fresh daylight, daylight that should have been a hair brighter for this time of year.

  Kenta shrugged. “Can’t say I saw many of those, myself. Little time for it in those days.” Luna, standing just ahead of them, tossed a backward glance that had Kenta clearing his throat, suddenly aware of the Faey eyes that had begun to slide toward him. “But no,” he whispered, “there is something else to this. Sen was known to these folk.” He nodded toward the pyre, and to the figures making their slow and considered way around it.

  Ceth frowned beside her as they watched a pair of elders being led around the pyre by Shek and Tirruhn. They did not shake sage or incense from dried herbs as Rusul and her sisters might, nor did they say words aloud, though Iyana thought she could see their lips moving, muttering. One of them, a shorter male, waved through the air in front of him, as if he were parting overhanging cobwebs or sweeping vines from their path. Iyana would have given it up as the senility of the very old, but the taller female made similar motions. Similar, but not exact.

  Iyana focused on the pair and was now aware of the attention they commanded. Where before they had walked abreast, now the one followed the other, each seemingly guarded by the warrior beside them. Shek frowned in consternation, pulling the female to the side so she did not knock her hip into the pyre, while Tirruhn was patient but no less firm with the male. They were Faeykin, silver-haired and slender, less muscled than those with black and oiled hair on the outskirts, and Iyana could see the bright emerald glow tinting the hollows below their lashes, growing brighter with each passing step.

  It was oddly haunting to watch, and oddly comforting. It looked as if the elders walked on a path separate from the rest of them. Iyana thought it little more than a ceremony, right up until Luna ushered Kenta out of the way and sidled up beside her. Iyana smiled absently up at the other Landkist, but she, too, was using her greensight. She reached a hand out, fingers grasping for Iyana’s. She took her hand.

  Iyana sighed a long, slow sigh and began to sway. She closed her eyes in a blink that could have lasted a second or a minute, and when she opened them, the ceremony took on a new brightness and a new meaning that made her heart swell despite her lack of understanding. Sen was not forgotten.

  The crowd of gathered mourners faded into the background, all but for their many-colored tethers, which waved on private winds. Kenta and Ceth were mere suggestions at her sides, and even Shek and Tirruhn—warriors who could not have been missed for all the silver and glittering white metal that adorned them—were nothing more than gray shadows. The elders seemed taller here, and more bright. Their eyes, which were closed in the world, were open wide in the Between, as were Luna’s. The path they walked around Sen’s pyre was like a memory or a dream of that in the physical world, and the imagined cobwebs the man in front swept away were all too real.

  Iyana squinted. “Threads,” she said, shaking her head. She did not understand. The lines the elder moved away from his path were undoubtedly there, but they did not carry the glow of the living, nor did they thrum like moths’ wings. Instead, they were empty, hollow things that broke apart at the touch. Mostly. Where before Iyana thought the female was doing the same, now she saw that she was gathering up the thicker threads that sprouted from Sen’s coil and joining them together in a great knot that grew as thick and tangled as a basket.

  “This is a Faey burial,” Luna said. Her voice sounded as if it were coming from far away, and when Iyana glanced in her direction, she saw that her lips did not move. She could see the scene before them just as Iyana could, and just as the rest could only guess at.

  “What is it?” Iyana asked.

  Luna smiled, and the voice that issued forth as if from her mind sounded like melancholy. “Regrets,” she said. “Memories.” She shrugged. “These are the threads the living leave behind and that only we can se
e. They cover the mortal form, blanket it. The Emberfolk burn their bodies and in so doing, burn away these threads. The folk of Center bury theirs in the ground, leaving them to lie among them for eternity. But we do not. We sweep away those too brittle to stay, and gather up those strong enough to be kept. The ones worth keeping.”

  “What do they do with them?” Iyana asked. It seemed such a strange practice, and yet Iyana accepted it. She supposed she had to, given where they were.

  Luna shrugged again. “Who is to say?” She nodded ahead, and Iyana saw the pair of elders complete their patrol. They paused, the male turning to the other, she who held the knot. She placed it on the pyre, folding it beneath Sen’s waiting hands and tucking it there for safekeeping. “What are burials but shows for the living?”

  It seemed to Iyana a crass thing to say, and her look showed it. Luna didn’t seem to mind.

  “It is the truth, Iyana, and there is no shame in it.” She smiled down at her. “Dying is hardest on the living, after all. We are the ones who must find a way to carry on. Perhaps, by cutting the threads that tied them down in life, we make the journey back to … wherever that much lighter.”

  Iyana began to feel a steady drum, like a heartbeat. She looked up into the sky, which came clear now that it had her attention. It was even darker here than it was in the world, and the longer Iyana stared, the more the drumming began to shift and turn, carrying with it a dark intent.

  She shook her head and nearly fell over as the brightness of the glade rushed back in and the vibrancy of the crowd came alive once more, their bright threads fading from view. She felt a firm hand holding her up and leaned back, feeling Ceth’s strong form pressed against her.

  He released her and she glanced back and nodded a sharp thanks without meeting his eyes. He took a half step away from her, as if embarrassed. No one else seemed to notice.

  As they watched, Shek and Tirruhn joined hands and moved out of the circle and away from the pyre. They took the elder female with them, after she finished tucking her tangle of threads the others could not see. She seemed unsteady as her greensight faded, and Iyana was glad she wasn’t the only one. The old man stood over Sen’s head, bowing low.

  He scanned the gathered mourners, some of whom were still casting curious stares at the wrapped bundle on the platform, and some of whom, Iyana thought, mixed less pleasant emotions into their looks. Looks like judgment.

  “Here burns Senafaey,” the man said. His voice projected all of the strength his body seemed to lack. Even as she looked, he seemed to stand a bit taller. Iyana did not know why she assumed his age. His face was unlined when compared with the elders among her own folk, and Iyana found herself wondering how old he truly was. Old. She knew it in his bearing, and she wondered how many such burials he had presided over in his day.

  The Faey kept to their own, and Iyana doubted if even Mother Ninyeva had known how long they lived, not to speak of their Landkist. Landkist like her.

  “Senafaey.” The man seemed to turn from addressing those gathered and instead focused on the prone form beneath him. “The Kin of Faeyr welcome you and release you.”

  “Kin.” The crowd said the word, once and without gusto, like a sigh on the wind.

  Tirruhn stepped back into the circle carrying a torch that burned bright and yellow, reminding Iyana of Jenk Ganmeer’s bold fire. Tirruhn pushed it into the dried brush on the borders of the pyre without hesitation and stepped back, and away burned Sen of the Valley.

  The crowd dispersed faster than Iyana found comfortable. There did not seem to be open derision or rudeness in their gaits, but Iyana read dismissal in the language of their bodies. Luna saw her staring after them and laid a hand on her shoulder as they watched the fire take Sen, just as it had taken so many before it. Just as it would take her, if she was lucky.

  “Not what you expected?” Luna asked.

  Iyana wasn’t entirely sure what she had expected and was less than sure how to answer, so she did not.

  “Being thought strange has its advantages,” Luna said. “We’ve received few visitors these last years.” She winked at Kenta, who blushed, but Iyana felt herself match him, though not in embarrassment. She felt anger and couldn’t quite put her finger on why. The elder who had said the words—too few of them—over Sen’s body looked her way and slid his cold stare over Luna before departing.

  “There were so few words,” Iyana said. Seeing that she and Kenta stayed, Ceth remained rooted beside them. No doubt the northern Landkist disagreed with her. She had seen burnings in the desert, and they were accompanied by fewer words even than these.

  “What are words, then?” Luna asked. She did not seem as if she were trying to be insulting. Still, as Iyana met her stare, she didn’t think the statement was made absent challenge. “What are words to the dead?”

  “Sen had a story,” Iyana said, grasping for something to seize on. She felt fresh wetness on her cheeks and wiped it away. She looked back toward the burning pyre, where Sen’s form was now little more than a smudge of shadow within the bloom of flame.

  “Yes, he did,” Luna said. She made as if to speak, but Kenta cleared his throat. Luna frowned and looked from Iyana back to the burning pyre. “Did you know much of his, then?” Kenta seemed taken aback, and for a moment, Iyana felt as if she had been slapped. She took a step toward Luna, who stood her ground. But the longer she stared into eyes that were not so dissimilar to her own, the less scorn she read in them.

  “No,” Iyana heard herself say. “No, I did not.” She looked to the pyre, watched the burning bridges collapse inward and the red coals tumble out onto the dark soil and lush grass. “But I wished to.” She said the last and was happy to know that she meant it.

  “No doubt you’ve a tale to tell us of Sen’s ending,” Luna said, her voice growing softer as she watched Iyana. “Endings are important, of course, but they only tell part of the tale. What is an ending without a beginning?”

  “Did you know him?” Iyana asked. The tears flowed freely now, and Iyana did not stop to wonder why she was so affected by a man she barely knew. An image flashed of the white, moonlit sand, which could do nothing to take away from the silver glow of Sen’s hair. He had looked up at her as she’d cut his life away. It felt like mercy then, and Iyana was glad to know that it still did when she looked back on it. His smile looked like gratitude. She had not imagined it.

  Still, there was an ache there that was raw enough to startle. She had held little love for the man, and even a touch of hate. She remembered the purple flower he had poisoned in a black cave for no other reason than because it pleased him to do so, or pleased him to have her watch. But there had been more to Sen of the Valley Faey. Much more, and Iyana thought she had seen some of the rest the instant he died. Such a long instant, like a fragmented shard of mirror out on the plains of time where the Sages had dueled.

  “I must confess I did not,” Luna said. “Know him,” she clarified for Iyana’s questioning stare. Iyana shook herself back into the present and allowed herself to be led away from the pyre. Kenta and Ceth gave them space. “Still, I knew the story of Senafaey, just as the rest of us did.”

  Iyana let her confusion show plainly as Luna led her through the wide, twisting pathways between the homes within the encircling wall of black trunks. Ceth and Kenta followed. They saw Shek on the road coming toward them, and Iyana found it easier to ignore her sharp and pointed looks with each passing moment.

  Luna led them to a small structure that must have been hers. They walked up a small stair into a cozy chamber inlaid with furs. There were paintings on the wall, pastes of green, orange and silver-gray on dried canvas skins. They looked to be the work of children. There were heads on the wall, with horns and fangs and tufts of fur. In all, the scene seemed to stand at odds with everything Iyana knew about the Faey, seeing so much death about. But then, she didn’t know much about them at all.
/>   “Tea?”

  They accepted—even Ceth—and sat on the threaded carpet while Luna busied herself over the coals in a circular grate in the center of the room that reminded Iyana of the one in Ninyeva’s leaning tower. She had never thought to wonder why most of the Emberfolk built their fireplaces and chimneys out of brick and kept them at the borders while Ninyeva kept her fire in the center of the room. Now, she thought she knew.

  Kenta bent to strike the sparks from the flint while Ceth arranged the tinder and split twigs into kindling. Luna’s eyes lingered on Hearth’s healer, and Iyana caught a mischievous look pass between them that Kenta did his best to cover. Still, Luna’s glance toward the lone bed pressed against the blackwood wall seemed less than conscious, and Iyana did the blushing for them.

  Luna told them of Senafaey as they waited for the tea to steep, filling the squat, ruddy chamber with the familiar woodsmoke that reminded her of the lakeshore. Iyana had known that Sen was not always of the Faey, but that was all she had known. Of his life before coming to them, Luna knew little. She knew his family had died in the Valley Wars and knew the Rivermen—the Rockbled in particular—were the prime object of his blame.

  “And perhaps they were to blame,” Luna said. “After all, it was a band of Rivermen who slew them.”

  “Why?” Iyana asked. “Was Sen not of the Scattered Villages? I thought the Rivermen would only come against the warriors among the Emberfolk with the threat of violence.”

  A different sort of look passed between Luna and Kenta, then, and it was one that Ceth seemed to understand before Iyana did.

  “War,” Kenta said, “is a term often used to describe our conflict with the Dark Kind. But war, Iyana, is something committed by men. Something we make, and not something that befalls us. There is nothing of nature in war. There is less of honor, no matter what the stories say.”

  Ceth looked as if he wanted to speak, and they waited for him. Seeing Iyana’s face held him back. She meant to ask him why later.