Chasing Embers

by James Bennet

  The night before he had left New York – months before his sorry return to her rooftop garden in Vinegar Hill and all the chaos that came after – they had made love. He knew back then that it had to be the last time. They had clung to each other like kite string, tangled and tossed by the winds of change. So crazy. So final. So sweet. Then, that night, Friday night, he had gone out alone to get drunk.

  Rose had known where to find him. It wasn’t hard; he usually drank in the Legends bar on 7th Street. Somewhere in the fog, she’d turned up, bursting into the bar and standing blurred before him. The curls of hair escaping her hat still looked like gold to him, but now he knew that such treasure wasn’t for him. His reluctance to tell her the truth, to explain that day in Central Park and all the other strange little incidents, had trapped him between the forbidden and loneliness. He couldn’t risk losing her, but was too afraid to keep her. Much like Tantalus, condemned to stand forever in his pool, the fruit on the low-hanging branches was always eluding his grasp and the water receding before he could drink it. And in that moment, he knew he was a blur to her too; he saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. He was a blur to her, an unknown quantity, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Kind of.

  “You don’t know me, Rose. We’re fucking different. Too fucking different.”

  She asked him what the hell he meant. Why he refused to tell her. Stubborn like her father, she said. You’re just like…but she hadn’t been able to speak. Unconsciously, she’d rubbed the scar on her forehead, a gesture that needled his shame, made him even angrier.

  “You know. Don’t act like you don’t.” He belched. Snarled to cover it.

  She said no, she didn’t know.

  “You wanna know what I do with my time? You wanna know what I did before, yeah? Well, I’ll tell you.” He was slurring badly. Spraying spit. He stood up, swaying like a buoy in a storm. “I work for crooks. Dumb dangerous jobs for dumb dangerous crooks, OK?” He was shouting now and he couldn’t seem to stop. “And you’re fucking dumb to have anything to do with me.”

  She told him he should come home. She told him, through her pretty tears, that she only wanted a normal life. Marriage. Kids. A future. Was that so fucking wrong?

  And he had laughed. Laughed in her face.

  “I love you,” she said.

  Drunk and bitter and mean, he told her she would only fade away, that there was no hope for them. Then he told his third and worst lie. He told her that he didn’t love her.

  “Who are you? What are you?”

  “I can’t give you what you want, Rose. Remember the cheque? Well, consider this my greatest act of charity.”

  Rose had choked and fled.

  And in the morning – in the grim, aching, shitty morning – Ben had left New York.

  Reverberations brought him round, heavy metallic echoes, approaching him at a halting pace.

  Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

  At first he took the noise for machinery. Then, shaking his jangling head and surveying the debris, a bent and twisted blur around him, he saw that none had survived his landing. Steam hissed from broken pipes, obscuring the area. Electricity crackled and spat from dangling wires, and Ben feared for the rank spill trickling down the walls outside. In the haze, smashed dials and snapped levers jutted from the crushed and ruptured units, their former function inscrutable. The floor groaned, warping to the mezzanine walls. Across from him, a platform projected from the side of the factory, a walkway leading off from it and up on to the tank. Up to Bardolfe, Nan and Rose. Limbs aching, he nudged his way out of the chaos, steel joists and a portion of the upper floor sliding off his body. With a clang, his horns skewered the ruined ceiling and, wrenching himself free, Ben transfigured back into the shape of a man to fit his surroundings.

  He wiped blood from his mouth, smearing it on the front of his skin-tight suit. Bees were hovering in here. Not many, but enough to fill the place with a soft background hum. The insects no longer swarmed, their fat little bodies zigzagging lazily over the shapes sprawled at intervals across the crooked floor. Through the clouds of steam, Ben made out the blue of overalls and realised that the shapes were bodies, factory workers unconscious or dead, apparently overcome by the bees.

  Clunk.

  He turned at the sound. It was closer now, on this level. Perhaps only a few yards away. The vapour made it difficult to tell. There was someone out there, halting as they noticed him. He could feel the stranger’s attention, hairs rising on the nape of his neck. Squinting, he made out a tall, broad form, bulky and human-shaped. But there was something not quite right about it. Instinct told him what his eyes could not.

  Clunk. Clunk.

  The figure moved closer, offering no clues. Metal glinted, dull in the gloom. What the hell? Coughing, bruised, Ben took a few steps back and almost tripped over one of the bodies, a workman lying at his feet. One glance and he saw the blood, congealing around the prone form. The long slash across the man’s back, glimpsed through the sodden rags of his overalls, looked suspiciously like a sword wound.

  Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

  The accelerating echoes, loud and lumbering, lanced through Ben’s alarm, a bucket of ice on his addled brain. He dodged sideways as the sword came whistling out of the fog, the blade narrowly missing his neck. Cold steel bit into his shoulder, lodging against his collarbone, fresh blood splattering the floor. Bellowing, he staggered in retreat, the sword slicking out of his flesh, leaving a message of pain. The blade snickered forward again, slicing at the sigil on his chest. Clutching his shoulder, Ben fell back to the mezzanine wall, cornered by mangled machinery and the hulking figure emerging from the steam.

  The newcomer towered over him, encased from head to toe in steel. A dented breastplate, polished to a high degree, reflected Ben’s shock back at him as he took in his would-be killer. The man was clad in antique armour – a bona fide medieval one-off – each section elegantly wrought, from the curved pauldrons to the trim fauld to the scarred and shapely greaves. The suit would have been a deathly contraption without the bristling array of spikes, designed to take on a very large wyrm that had menaced the lands around Lambton. Spikes adorned every inch, jagging from the gauntlets and hinges, leaving only the smallest gaps in its unique defences. It was a relic of triumph and tragedy, a recent gift to the gallery in Paladin’s Court, and now bestowed on a new combatant with his own troublesome wyrm to slay.

  The helmet, beaked and vulturine, levelled upon Ben. No heavy breaths filtered through the visor, the bladed grille strangely silent. Peering into the narrow slit above its muzzle, Ben saw pale orbs staring back at him, the pupils rimmed by sickly green, like over-boiled eggs. Around the eyes, the skin was shrivelled, shiny and black, carbonised by flame. Putrescence drifted to Ben’s nose, the meaty stench informing him that the occupant of the suit had not escaped his fate in the underground car park.

  The man before him was obviously dead. Roast mutton sealed in a tin, revived, he guessed, by aberrant witchcraft.

  “Oh Fulk,” Ben said, despite himself. “What have they done to you?”

  Fulk, being dead, did not reply. Instead, he hefted the sword in his hand – the familiar weapon scorched now, a length of broken, rotten teeth – and cocked his head to one side, a dumb, uncomprehending gesture.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Ben said, and he had, more than once. He glanced to either side of him, searching for escape. “When House Fitzwarren threw in with the CROWS, you might as well have dug your own grave. Not that death has stopped you.”

  Without taking his eyes off Fulk, he slowly edged to his left, sliding along the mezzanine wall. “So what was the deal? Why did the CROWS agree to help you? My head must’ve come at a price.” As he spoke, several cogs were whirring in his mind, recent memories falling into place. The answer lay in the week’s events, glaring him in the face all along. When he’d first seen the armour in Paladin’s Court, he’d recalled the Tale of the Lambton Wyrm. There had been a witch in that tale, and a witch in t
he Mordiford tale too, narrated by the brute before him in the underground car park. There was a witch in current events as well. Always a goddamn witch. Once again, Ben found the coincidence telling, the threefold appearance of the hag lending weight to his suspicions. “It was the suit, right?” The revelation hit him as he took in the razor-sharp tines, promising a painful end. “Some ancestral link between House Lambton and House Fitzwarren, this old tin can falling into your family’s hands. In London, Miss Macha called you a delivery boy. That’s it, isn’t it? The Three called on House Fitzwarren and made their little bargain. But just what did you deliver, Fulk?”

  Silence from the helmet. Who knew what subterfuge had taken place? Ben could take a wild guess. Paladin’s Court forbade entry to Remnants, so the Three could not have made a direct approach. Cue Fulk and the Lambton armour. The perfect Trojan horse.

  “You used the suit to let the CROWS reach into Paladin’s Court, infect the Guild with magic. No chairman would deny an audience to one of the noble houses, even one as disinherited as yours. The Fitzwarren patriarchs offered the suit of armour as a gift to the gallery, something that Bardolfe was bound to go for, right? Tell me, were you wearing this junk when you arrived on his doorstep?” Ben pictured Bardolfe laughing on the step at his gift, as other Fitzwarren family members accompanied a tall, clanking Fulk into the hall. But Fulk alone would present no threat, so what hex from the Three had the Black Knight carried? What had House Fitzwarren intended this helmet to hide? What had really been inside the Lambton armour? Inside Fulk, the Trojan horse?

  Ben was running out of guesses, his growing horror that he was right reflected in his voice. “Just what did you give the CROWS in return for my head? Your body, Fulk? Your soul?”

  Whether Fulk heard him or not was impossible to tell. The iron giant just stared at him, dispassionate and dumb. Did memories stir inside his helmet, vague impressions of old scores, years of training, the inculcation of hand-me-down hate? Ben thought it unlikely. The Black Knight was as much a puppet now as he’d ever been, a zombie dispatched by the CROWS to finish off the refinery staff, if the evidence was anything to go by. It would fall to another Fulk – Fulk Fitzwarren CDXIII, if Ben’s count was correct – to take up the ancient duty, attempt to win back the deeds to Whittington Castle, that weed-choked, ruined shell, from whatever was left of the Guild.

  This was an old fight – the oldest Ben knew – and he was sick of it. Rose was in danger. He wouldn’t fail her again.

  “You know, I really don’t have time for this.” He lunged to his right, wrong-footing the slayer. The old family claymore came crashing down, carving the space where Ben had stood a moment before and crunching into crippled machinery. Sparks flew, jolting up the blackened blade and rattling Fulk in his armour. But his goose was already cooked. Soundlessly he wrenched the sword free and clanked around to give chase, a Tin Man in need of oil. Ben backed away as Fulk came at him, the notched claymore swinging. Gone was the dueller’s grace, learnt since childhood in some clandestine Shropshire school, his skill checked by atrophied flesh and pounds of medieval steel. Still Fulk came on, silent, murderous, his barbed sabatons thudding on the grid.

  The vibrations shuddered through Ben’s limbs. Bending down, he watched his arms bulge and harden, a fleshy undulation surging down the sleeves of his suit, forming his own natural armour. Jaw clenched, veins popping, he lifted the fallen girder at his feet. Sweat dripped from his forehead, stinging his blazing eyes. For an agonising moment, he balanced the girder on his knees, then hefted the load up over his head, his legs trembling and swelling. Claws burst from his feet as he braced. With a yell, he pushed his straining muscles to their limits and hurled the girder at Fulk.

  A noise like colliding trains rang across the factory. Echoes punched the mezzanine walls. The dead knight fell, swathed in steam.

  Panting, Ben stumbled over to where Fulk lay and stood looking down at him. His eyes, bloodless, gazed through his visor without emotion, heedless to his Enemy. For once, Fulk’s lunges had not been personal. They were just the blank actions of an automaton, directed by fucked-up voodoo. Still, instinct prevailed. The knight thrashed under the girder like a bear in a trap, his arms and legs pounding the floor, his crushed breast-plate rattling. Even if Ben removed the beam, the spiked armour would pin Fulk fast.

  Ben picked up the slayer’s sword, dropped inches from the man’s reach. The hilt was prickly in his grip, slippery with spells, reluctantly held. The blackened blade, fifty-five inches of tempered steel, shone a little brighter, its irritable whine competing with the bees. Well, he wouldn’t have to hold it for long. This wasn’t the first time he’d had to deal with House Fitzwarren and it wouldn’t be the last. The family was a weed, watered by revenge and sprouting perennial. The faces changed, but the task, never. Still, the Black Knight’s hunt was at an end.

  The sword slashed down. The beaked helmet bounced across the grid.

  Ben dropped the blade and shook his head, surprised he had no parting words.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Ben-between-states reached the end of the walkway and leapt down on to the feed tank. Grim-faced, a red-scaled, flame-eyed man, he strode towards the hub where the Queen slumped in chains. She was a dark mountain rising from the surface of the tank, her horns like outcrops, her scales slopes of volcanic glass. Heavy breaths rumbled under Ben’s feet and no storm greeted him, her dormant state seeming faintly irreverent after their previous clashes. Her eyes – hooded sapphire slits – gazed only inwards, blind to his presence.

  “Dear me,” Sir Maurice said. “You’re a tenacious bugger, aren’t you? Well, I’m afraid this is a private party and I don’t recall inviting you.”

  The Queen slumbered, but the chairman of the Guild was a different matter. He stood leaning against one claw, an elbow propped on a black talon. Some illusion conjured up by his tux and his smile lent him more of an air of menace than the serpent above him. His pale face, untouched by the sun, radiated triumph, an expression that threw a ball and chain around Ben’s ankles and slowed his approach.

  “I came for the girl, old man. Give her up. Then we’ll put an end to this.”

  Ben couldn’t see Rose from his position, the pyramid of barrels hidden by the Queen.

  “Now, what did Aesop say?” Bardolfe stroked his chin, thinking. “‘Uninvited guests are most welcome when they leave.’ Wise man, Aesop. You should like him. Talking animals and all that. And you should take his advice.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “No? Well, your impudence doesn’t surprise me. Do you have any idea of the lengths I’ve gone to? How difficult it was to arrange your presence at the British Museum? When it comes to guests, Winlock is as fussy as I am. The least you could do was have the manners to die.”

  “Someone didn’t think I was worth it.”

  “Indeed. Atiya surprised us all. We certainly weren’t expecting her to show you mercy.” Bardolfe patted the talon and clasped his hands, both clad in spotless white gloves. He was playing the part of the gracious host, exchanging pleasantries over cocktails. “Still, one must always think ahead. My associates wanted you dead, and who was I to deny them? House Fitzwarren had their grudge and the CROWS saw you causing us a problem. A reasonable prediction, it seems, even if you are too late.” The chairman shrugged. “Nevertheless, you managed to escape them. One just can’t get the staff these days. Isn’t that right, Nan?”

  Glaring at Bardolfe, Ben hadn’t noticed the little girl slipping out from the Queen’s shadow. Affecting shyness, she hung back behind the knight, a finger twirling in one of her pigtails. Up close, Ben saw the mess on the front of her dress, the fabric splotched with some brown, crusty substance that he didn’t think was chocolate. Whatever she’d been eating, it was sticky-looking, splashes of the stuff on her mouth and cheeks. A doll dangled from her other hand, a pink plastic baby, its lashes fluttering against her leg. The substance smeared both hand and doll, and Ben realised it could only be blood. Mor
e bad news.

  “I told you. Somebody helped him.” The witch, Nan Nemain, whined at Bardolfe’s reproach. Her Texan drawl was soft and shrill, ill-fitting to her juvenile throat. She sounded nothing like a child. “A Remnant crony, if I’m not mistaken. Blaise Von Hart. Some jumped-up fairy acting as an envoy.”

  Ben didn’t like this. Von Hart had saved his life, and despite the envoy’s reluctance to join him, it troubled him to hear his name. That ridiculous mask, a grinning Punchinello, hadn’t helped Von Hart after all.

  “Leave Hart out of this. It’s got nothing to do with him.”

  Bardolfe chuckled. “Oh, but it does. This concerns everyone under the sun, Remnants included.” He glanced at the witch. “Never mind, Nan. We will get to them all in time. They’ll bend the knee or…”

  He left the thought hanging and spread his hands, a snide apology between them.

  Ben took the gesture for a signal. Bunching his shoulders, he leapt forward, intending to knock the knight and the witch flying. If he could buy enough time, he’d grab Rose and take to the air. Once she was safe, he’d return for Atiya, do whatever he could to wipe that smile off Bardolfe’s face, even if it meant tearing the feed tank apart.

  The shield shimmered as he struck it, a blue sheen pulsing with the impact. The barrier, as seemingly tensile as the strange bubble he had seen outside the British Museum, was in fact diamond hard. He staggered back rubbing his arm, his sword wound reopened halfway through healing. Knives stabbed his shoulder. Blood dribbled down the front of his suit.

  “Oh you won’t get past my little friends,” Bardolfe said. He spread his arms, a pointed finger on the end of each one. “Designed millennia ago to keep things in, and now keeping everything out.”

  Eyes narrowed, Ben followed the old man’s signals. Several yards away on his right, one of Winlock’s magic bricks rested on the tank. The statue was knee-high, a crumbling sculpture of a coiled snake, hood flaring, tongue slipping between fangs forever poised to strike. If memory served, this was Apep, the Lizard, one of the funerary demons that Winlock had found in the half-drowned tomb on the shores of Lake Nasser. Looking left, Ben saw Shezmu placed at a similar distance, its leonine head and human body a brooding block. Around both relics, the light held a viscous quality, like cellophane stretched over water, gleaming in the ambience of noon. Beyond the Queen’s looming shadow Ben guessed he would see the other two bricks, Ammit and Set, placed equidistantly around the boundary, sealing the hub of the tank in a solid yet invisible dome. He’d hit the damn thing when he’d dived from the sky; his shoulder was still bruised from the impact.