Chasing Embers

by James Bennet

  He tried to tell himself he wasn’t spooked, even as he went to close the door. Then he noticed the mark etched upon it, gouged deeply in the bright red paint with patience and a blade.

  It was a rune. One of the old ones. Not Norse, not Futhark. Runes from the Lands that were now long gone. The runes that only a few remembered. The runes that they used to call wyrm tongue.

  The one on his door – rough, large and boldly graven – obviously symbolised an A.

  Ben swore. The letter meant nothing to him. It wasn’t a glyph of House Fitzwarren or a sigil of the CROWS, that he did know. The symbol wasn’t magically charged; it wasn’t some binding spell. It was a calling card, pure and simple, a stark, knowing signature. It was all the threat that anyone would need.

  I have been here. I know where you live.

  He shivered in the cold night air. Instinct told him that a fight was coming. In the Legends bar, he’d seen it shine like heraldry in the Black Knight’s eyes.

  Rampant combatant.

  He had urgent business, but first he needed rest.

  The lounge no longer offered any comfort. It was a chill and violated space. He glared at the stranger’s footprints, then angrily downed a quart of Jack. Confusion gripped him, along with shame. He had been caught naked and snoring, completely exposed to some faceless other as he lay on the couch. He couldn’t work out what pissed him off most: that someone had managed to sneak in here, or that they hadn’t attacked him. He wasn’t home often enough to tell if anything had been stolen, but he didn’t think so. The visit amounted to a message, surely, whether he grasped its meaning or not.

  Still, the house, this empty sham of bricks and mortar, no longer felt safe. He headed through the kitchen and down into the cellar, where he lightly pressed a section of wall. It slid back, revealing steps leading further into darkness. Thick cobwebs and stale air assured him that these secret depths remained undisturbed. The knowledge calmed him with every step as he made his way down.

  Long before the house was built, before the Romans and Saxons, Ben’s ancestors had lived here. Dwelt here. Unlike their more aggressive kin, who favoured mountains and windy heaths, the Great Forest had been their stamping ground and they’d lived in peace with their human neighbours, serving the masters who gave them life. Those were golden times. The long summer of the Old Lands. The long summer of Albion. Two worlds that overlapped as one, where stunned squires pulled swords from stones, and betrayal and war were vague omens scattered by Druids in bird bones and blood…

  Then came the fall of Arthur, that legendary king in whose blood ran the very union of magic and Man, who symbolised in flesh and steel the binding of the worlds, earthly and other. In his folly, the King had sown seeds of darkness, mortal and malevolent. His son, Mordred, incest-born and warped by demonic spells, rose up from the ranks of the Round Table to tear apart any hope of a golden age. Mordred’s treachery brought about a great battle on Camlann Field, men against men, with Remnants caught between them, the various divisions of witches, wizards and fabulous beasts forced to choose a side. Some fought for the usurper. Some fought for the King. Battle between dragon and dragon, giant and giant, dwarf and dwarf. Between men and women who would claim Albion’s throne as their own, between reason and dreams. As the green lawns of Albion ran red with blood and crows pecked gleefully at eyeballs, the King lay dying on a nearby lake shore, his marshal knight by his side. Arthur’s last breath signalled a crack in history, a final surrender of magic and myth, an end to its reign on these shores. If the Fay had devised this paragon, this Golden Example, in the hope of abiding peace, then they had failed. Where history and legend had intertwined, fate now wrenched them apart. Human lust and treachery had proved, at least to some, that the two worlds could never be one. The Fay had turned their backs in disgust and strode off into the endless nether, the outer dark that surrounded Creation, taking their golden age with them. An era of beauty and glory was done, and things would never be the same.

  For those few of the Old Lands left behind, the going was bitter and hard. As city walls grew and roads advanced, Ben’s kind gradually withdrew. The Matter of Britain no longer mattered. The Fay had left this brave new world to it, their art and their wisdom forgotten and crushed under the wheels of progress. The Romans came, and on their heels the Vikings and Saxons. Those tribes, pagan as they were, were tolerant enough of Remnants, and many survivors from the war scratched out a living in deep, dank caves and lonely woods, blasted fells and misty moors. The Middle Ages was when the real trouble started, around the time of Red Ben’s birth…

  Ben knew his history all right. The true history of Britain. He thought most of it read like a fantasy novel.

  As he wound deeper under the house, into the belly of an old forest hill, he caught the first glimmers of the trinkets down there, collected long ago by the Fay, the vanished race of masters. Between fat, rune-carved pillars, under a vast vaulted roof, lay heaps and heaps of burnished gold, glittering mounds of age-old coins, shields, helmets and swords. Crystal veins that ran through the granite shone sorcerously down on the trove, glowing in the depths of rubies, sapphires and diamonds, some of the jewels fatter than a fist. Buried in the endless slopes were statuettes and gilded mirrors, pearl necklaces and silver crowns, gem-studded tomes and knot-work goblets. Around the shadowed edges of the hoard, set carefully against the worn tapestries that lined the grey stone walls, one might find other, more recent treasures, amassed by Ben through his age-spanning life. Tudor seals made of gold. Relics looted by Cromwell and Napoleon. Victorian clocks. Fabergé eggs. Ming vases. Ivory triptychs and lost Masters, depicting sea serpents, saints and queens.

  He reached the bottom step and sighed. The last time he had visited this place, air-raid sirens had wailed and whooped through the streets above, the Blitz raging through London. He could feel the gold reflected on his face, a sun of wealth, easing his fears. To reach out here, to let emeralds spill through his claws, was to touch a vanished world, feel the heritage to which he belonged. The hoard was both history and legacy.

  It was also a bed. In full natural shape, sprawled across yards of untold riches, Red Ben Garston folded his wings and gathered his strength in restless dreams.

  FIVE

  Paladin’s Court was only three miles from Regent’s Park, where Ben rose from the bushes this Tuesday night, wings spread to meet the sky. Below him, the lights of London, tangling down the serpentine streets, the sight as familiar as an old map. Over the years, these buildings and alleyways, cemeteries and stations, had spread under his private supervision. The wanton urbanisation was like a deluge on the world he once knew. London City shouted in the dark. Traffic, construction and the roar of stadiums merged into a dissonant blare, echoing into the void.

  He climbed directly upwards, the golden river of the A41 snaking far below, a makeshift compass. Soon the orange pools of Belsize Park gave way to the sweep of Hampstead Heath. And beyond the woods, Paladin’s Court. The sixteenth-century mansion, a glut of gable, chimney and turret, stood at the end of a winding driveway on the north side of the Heath. Its location was hardly a secret. Why would it be? A creature like Ben was crazy to come here, and that was the Court’s best defence.

  Yes, there were ways to ask questions. And ways for the Guild to avoid giving answers. The Guild’s regime reached far beyond Britain. Agents and spies operated around the globe, overseeing and, on occasion, enforcing the Lore. These agents provided contact points for all querent Remnants, always keeping the Court at some remove. In short, you didn’t come to the Guild. The Guild came to you. If Ben had tried to make an appointment, to visit the Court in person, his request would have met with stony silence, followed by a letter of rejection reminding him to use the proper channels. Just because the Guild and the Remnants had managed to reach political accord, it didn’t make them friends.

  Paladin’s Court had been in the care of the Bardolfe family for nine generations. Over the years, the role of chairman had passed between
several aristocratic houses, but never left the chosen circle, those rare few humans wise to the Pact. Now it was Maurice Bardolfe’s turn. Maurice Bardolfe. Philanthropist. Explorer. All-round good egg. The faces changed but the titles never did. Maurice Bardolfe. Lord of the Guild of the Broken Lance.

  Sir Maurice Bardolfe. Knight.

  The resentment summoned up by that word lent Ben the strength to make his own appointment. Three thousand feet above Hampstead Heath, he folded his wings in close, pointed his snout earthward and dropped like a bomb. The wind screamed and seethed through his gills as his bulk descended. The Court’s brick façade grew larger, the expertly tended lawns, the chimneypots and mullioned windows rushing into view. Mossy statues ignored his approach, the gardens an expanse of shadow and fog. A fox yelped and ran for cover. Soft light glowed behind the huge round window above the crenellated entrance hall, picking out St George and the Dragon in exquisite stained glass. St George, the official patron of the Guild, and indeed all England, sat astride his great white charger in his Templar tabard, his shield raised, his lance spearing the typically green and flaming dragon under his horse’s hooves. Symbols surrounded the image, this famous figurative submission, a cheerful border of crossed swords, apple trees and crucifixes. War, sin and death.

  Ben knew the truth behind the image. The slaughter had taken place many miles from here, in a place called Silene, now known as Libya. In the early eleventh century, soldiers from the First Crusade had brought the tale home with them, shoehorning George – a Byzantine general – into Britain’s hagiography. The tale was pretty much the same now as it had been back then: venomous dragon menaces city, people chosen by lots to appease it, the draw falling on the King’s daughter. King promises gold and half his realm if his subjects spare said daughter. His subjects refuse, daughter gets sent in bridal gown to the dragon’s lair (because one should always look one’s best when one is about to get eaten). George rides by, sees chained-up damsel, battle ensues and one bloody, grievous wound later, the dragon dies and everyone is happy.

  Good story, and it was a story. The way that Ben had heard it from his kind, there had been no damsel, and good old George was drunk that day, blind drunk and looking for someone to take it out on, having lost at dice to his military pals. On his way to visit a whore in an outlying village, he had come across a hillside cave and stopped for a while to smash up some eggs, kicking green and blue yolk all over the walls. Then, seeing a way to earn back his gold, he had taken an old giant skull from the back of the cave and galloped into Lasia, the nearest city, to declare himself a hero and saviour.

  It was, of course, a very famous murder. All those eggs, the leavings of a poor dead beast, slain before they could hatch. Ben took pleasure in his descent, muttering as he drew near the ground.

  “Come not between the dragon and his wrath…”

  His rapidly transforming form, rhino-sized, horned and scaled, crashed through the middle of the stained-glass window. Coloured chips and strips of lead showered the entrance hall, tinkling off the threadbare rug and panelled walls in a cacophonous rainbow. Echoes raced like imps into the mansion, slapping the corridor walls and sprinting up the grand staircase. As he landed in the hall, wings spread to slow his fall, the chandelier jangled over his head with a shrill, crystalline din. A painting fell, the frame cracking open, some lacquered earl scowling at his sudden demotion. A shield-skinned hulk in the moonlight, half returned to human shape, Ben straightened, cricked his neck and waited for attention.

  It arrived in the form of two Dobermanns, racing around a pilastered corner and into the hallway, their clipped paws scuttling on wood. Their low growls never blossomed into barks. One look at the scaly man-beast in the hall and they whined and turned stubby tail, trotting back into the dark. Ben would have laughed if not for the arrival of Maurice Bardolfe at the top of the stairs. His hair was a blizzard atop his skull, his pyjamas disarrayed. A World War II revolver trembled in his hand.

  Ben’s protest, rough and short, flew off his lizardine tongue.

  “Now wait just a min—”

  The old man didn’t wait. Shots rang out, biting into wood and stone. Cordite spiced the musty space. Ben threw his arms in front of his face as Bardolfe tottered down the staircase, a gaunt grey bird peering from the landing.

  “Demon! Fiend! Get out of my house!”

  More shots, fired at random into the gloom. Bullets sparked off Ben’s forearms and bounced on to the floor. Still, they hurt. He heard Bardolfe gasp and the trigger click, the cylinder empty. Ben came lunging out of the shadows and leapt up the stairs, confronting the man as he shrank against the banister. Bardolfe’s querulous gaze travelled over Ben’s shoulder. Breath wheezed out of his lungs as he took in the shattered window.

  “You…you vandal! You brute! Do you have any idea of the cost?” He looked about ready to cry.

  “It’s only glass, knight. Tell me what I want to know and I’ll gladly pay for repairs.”

  “The historical cost, you oaf! You think I need your money?” Ben shrugged. “Then it’s still only glass.” He gave the old man a meaningful stare. “Glass and lead. Flesh and bones…”

  Bardolfe forgot all about the window. His body shook. His lips trembled. It was as if he was seeing Ben for the first time. Ben, dwindling from his half-beast state and into his full human form, a six-foot, scruff-haired man standing naked in the hall. The moonlight must have made his muscular frame and angry green eyes all the more apparent.

  “It’s you. The Sola Ignis. The milk drinker. You’re in breach of the Lore by coming here, you know. Uffington, 1215, remember? My ancestors—”

  “Don’t lecture me, old man. I was there. I know what I signed.”

  Bardolfe raised the gun, a futile gesture, the heirloom or whatever it was feeble in his grasp. Ben took it from him. To make a point, he squeezed it in his hand. The grip curved in to meet the muzzle, crushing the empty barrel between them. He tossed the crumpled gun over his shoulder, heard it go thumping down the steps.

  Bardolfe watched it go, his wrinkled gizzard rising and falling.

  “Well, what in blazes do you want?”

  And so Ben made his appointment. “We need to talk, you and I.”

  He gave Bardolfe a minute to recover. The old man went to a cupboard under the stairs, rummaged around for a minute and flung a moth-eaten raincoat over his shoulder at Ben. So you won’t catch your death, he muttered, as if he genuinely cared. Ben, vaguely embarrassed by his nakedness, shuffled into the coat and followed his host into the study.

  Antiques packed the room, Persian rugs, Chippendale chairs and Tiffany lamps making an elegant medley of the space. A bust looked down from a shelf above the door. Janus, Ben thought, some fancy fellow like that. Bardolfe, another fancy fellow, went doddering over to his felt-topped desk and the baroque cabinet set behind it, pouring himself a generous Scotch from a crystal decanter. He raised a wiry eyebrow at Ben, who shook his head in brusque but reluctant refusal. He hadn’t come here to socialise.

  Bardolfe took a long, quivering sip, licked his lips and regarded Ben with a look that he probably thought courageous.

  “Now then, what’s this all about?”

  Ben tilted his head. “Seriously? As if you didn’t know. How many pies does the Guild have fingers in these days anyway?”

  “I’m afraid I—”

  “Corporate cartels. Religious sects. Embassies. You’ve built yourselves a right little empire. All on the bones of the Old Lands.”

  “Now listen here—”

  “No, you listen. Your Pact means shit. Friday night in New York, Fulk Fitzwarren tried to kill me. He walked right up in an East Side bar and tried to chop off my head.” Tried and failed. “The attack took place in broad daylight.”

  Bardolfe digested this for a moment and then gave an indifferent grunt.

  “Well…you and that family have never exactly traded Christmas cards. Not since the Mordiford incident eight hundred years ago, if we credit our his
tory.” Bardolfe took another sip of Scotch and tipped his glass at Ben. “You know we keep the deeds to Whittington Castle. The family often make petitions, calls to amend the Royal Clause, to rescind the seal of King John. I’ll wager that their present interest has more to do with the principle than the actual place. Whittington is a heap of rubble.” The old man sighed. “This is all so much water under the bridge.”

  “Easy for you to say. You don’t have leather-clad thugs trying to turn you into mincemeat.”

  “Fulk Fitzwarren – whichever one of them currently goes by that name – is nothing to us. The Guild, as ever, remains neutral. We’re impartial, like Switzerland. We simply can’t afford to get involved in petty disputes between our various wards.”

  “No?” Ben glowered. “That’s helpful.”

  “Look, I’ll accept that such an attack is illegal. All Remnants, all humans privy to your existence, must obey the Lore or what good is it? I don’t see why you had to smash my window and wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me this. If you want to lodge a formal complaint, then—”

  “Then what? You’ll summon the Fitzwarrens to court? Hold a fair hearing? Right. Maybe when Hell freezes over.”

  Bardolfe’s eyes were chips of ice. “No one is above the Lore.”

  “According to the CROWS, there is no Lore. They were there too, Bardolfe. In Manhattan. Turns out they were backing Fulk. Babe Cathy almost ran me down on the Brooklyn Bridge – with a little help from magic, of course.” He enjoyed watching the old man squirm. “Yeah, seems to have something to do with some fancy rock – the Star of Eebe – stolen from an exhibition at the Javits Center. Babe was all hocus-pocus about it, you know how that lot are, babbling on about crooks and killers and new flames scouring the sky…But the Guild wouldn’t know anything about that, right?”