‘Because Persephone refuses to rise on time,’ the child called out again. She seemed to be on the verge of tears. Her mother hushed her angrily.
Damn the child. The little harlot was threatening the mood. The Lightcaster sniffed the air after her scent. There, he had her. Healthy little kitten. She was in his nose, never to be forgotten, and he would return for her one day to make her pay many times over for her interrupting a burning day. Her name floated into his mind. Acacia. The mother was pulling her from the crowd, fear over her face.
The child looked back angrily. ‘We don’t burn witches here!’ she called in a quavering voice. ‘He’s a Light —’ She got no further. Her mother clamped a large red hand over her mouth and dragged her off before she could create any further disturbance.
Sensible woman, she obviously sensed her child’s life was in danger. It made the Lightcaster wonder how many in the large crowd were under his influence and how much was their own innate cruelty that they normally never allowed free rein. It was an interesting contemplation, but now was not the time to indulge in philosophical musings. ‘Look!’ He pointed up into the sky and the crowd called out in fear. ‘The sky is darkening! The witches have summoned a storm. We must burn them quickly, before they dampen the fire with Devil water from the sky!’
‘Please,’ Mary tried to appeal to the crowd. ‘Remember all I have done for you. Ano and I have been faithful subjects of Faia. Little Rosedark you have known since you were a child. You know in your hearts we are innocent. Do not listen to the Lightcaster. He has you under his spell and you do not know what you are doing!’
‘Shut up witch,’ a man spat at her. The Lightcaster nodded, smiling slightly. He wished he had more time to play with the crowd, see how cruelly he could make them act. He loved to study people, but the child had been a dangerous distraction and his hold over them was weakening. He was also afraid that Khartyn would return at any moment and interrupt his feeding. He had pushed them all as far as he could today. It was time.
With a brusque nod of his head he indicated that the accused should be thrown onto the fire, watching in anticipation as the men dragged them towards the flames. Oh, they were putting up a fight, he snarled softly. It was always more satisfying when they panicked at the prospect of burning alive. Their primitive, sacred fear fed him rapidly, and he could feel himself becoming erect as they pushed against the men who dragged them, crying out to their goddesses. A low terrible chant came from the crowd. ‘Burn the witches! Burn the witches!’ He smiled, eyes half shut in bliss. It was a perfect moment and one he had never failed to enjoy over time. Now they were forcing them into the fire, and the crowd had moved closer to get a better view. There were screams as the flames licked at them. At one stage they broke free only to be quickly pushed back into the furnace. The Lightcaster shut his eyes. Bliss . . .
So it was to end in this terrible way. There were to be no last-minute reprieves, no miracles, no time for goodbyes. Only pain and terror. The end of all Man’s hopes, dreams and plans had come so quickly, so unexpectedly, and so much more horribly than she could ever have foreseen. Ano must have seen this future and been forbidden to tell her. Rosedark was screaming, her head a ball of fire as she tried to run out to the villagers who only pushed her back. Ano writhed in her arms as he spoke his last words, words that carried her from one world to the next with an intact heart.
‘I love you. I always have loved you.’
And one final searing shout from Rosedark. ‘Khartyn! Old Mother!’
Then black shapes, noise, and a terrible smell of something burning, too awful to look at or to know about.
Blackness. No more pain.
CHAPTER FOUR
The dust screamed to the heavens, ‘What is death’s name?’
And the heavens replied in the tongue of death, in the forgotten language of fire, ‘Death is the horizon of immortal life, the dawn of a troubled sleep. Dance for joy dust. For death is the beautiful awakening of the gods.’
— COLUMN PIECE FOR THE NEW BAFFIN DAILY ON
‘THE DREAM OF DEATH’ BY HORUS
The Web-Kondoell
Khartyn froze. She felt a pull at her heart, a foreboding. Her mouth tasted of ash, of terror and deep sadness. ‘Rosedark?’ she whispered. She felt a lightness within, a sense of dislocation from her body. Attempting to suppress rising hysteria, she turned to Rashka who was crouched on the floor, the seat of her leather pants smeared in blood. Her Hosthatch Seleza lay back in her arms. The surviving Azephim who had witnessed the violent hatching crouched over their Queen anxiously.
‘I have to return to Faia immediately,’ Khartyn announced. ‘I am needed there.’
Rashka looked up at her. Her hair, flecked with gore, hung over her eyes. Khartyn was shocked at the grief in the deadly Azephim’s eyes. ‘Don’t come near!’ she hissed. ‘The Queen is dead.’
Khartyn stared at Seleza in disbelief. She was surprised at the depth of emotion she felt. Although Khartyn had made no secret of her condemnation of the bloodthirsty lifestyle of the Azephim, she had long respected Seleza for her strength and courage. The Azephim Queen had even attempted to outlaw some of the more barbaric Azephim customs, such as the spinnerets.
Involuntarily, Khartyn took a step backwards, her black boot slipping in a sticky substance on the floor. An Azephim in the raw stages of grief and loss was not something the Crone felt capable of dealing with. But despite her apprehension, Khartyn’s fears for her apprentice necessitated communication with Rashka.
‘Your Hosthatch was the finest Azephim I have known,’ Khartyn said gently. ‘I will mourn for her when I return to Faia. But I must leave now, urgently. I am needed in my homeland and I have honoured my promise to you to deliver the egg.’ As she spoke, she looked around the destroyed room. If Rashka blamed her for what had hatched from the egg, then death was only a few precious breaths away and she would never be able to help Rosedark.
Rashka laughed and let the corpse of her Hosthatch drop to the floor. She faced Khartyn and the Crone could sense the Glazrmhom fighting to control her reactions. To display emotion was considered shocking in the sterile world of the Azephim angels. ‘Yes,’ she said, glancing around in what would have looked like disbelief if it had been any other being but an Azephim. ‘You honoured your promise, Crone. I warned Seleza about contaminating the Web with an alien. If she had only listened to me. You hatched that . . . thing, whatever it was. You destroyed the Web and killed innocent Azephim. Half of the Amew council have gone. Seleza . . . You, you skinny, aged, puerile bag of bones. You dare to address me directly and order me to take you back to Eronth?’ Without warning, she threw back her head and let out a terrible scream. The sound was more fury than grief.
‘Stop!’ Sati cried. ‘The damage that has occurred here is not the Crone’s responsibility. You are not honouring your Hosthatch’s memory to dismiss her final request in the manner you have done. You may not have agreed, but it was Seleza’s desire Khartyn take over the Hatching as no Azephim was capable of Hatching the Ghormho’s egg. Khartyn was merely displaying loyalty to Seleza whom she had great respect for.’
Khartyn stared in shock at the sight of Sati, now on her feet from where she had been King over the dead body of the faery Fenn. She had never thought she would live to see her ex-apprentice defending her to the Azephim. Sati had been her most promising apprentice, until she had chosen to defect to live with Ishran, the Ghormho, and sibling of Rashka. Now Sati and Rashka faced each other. Rashka’s yellow eyes were glowing. Sati, by contrast appeared collected despite her grief.
‘Defending Crones?’ Rashka sneered. ‘You’re as feeble as Ishran, who befriends Bluites before he fucks them!’
Sati flinched. ‘I am no friend of Khartyn’s, but I am the wife of the Ghormho, who by Seleza’s death is now High Priest of the Web. My word is therefore law. I choose to honour Seleza by allowing the Crone to live and to return to her world.’
Rashka snarled, her hand reaching slowly towards th
e dagger fastened around her waist. ‘Ishran will never be High Priest of the Web! He is a traitor to the Azephim. He dwells among Bluites and he has made it clear he hates Kondoell and the Azephim who live here. Seleza would never have wished for Ishran to rule. It is I, the Glazrmhom, who she wished to succeed her.’
‘If that is true, why did she make no provision for it? You are the traitor to the Web-Kondoell for choosing to go against ordained Azephim law. You can only rule in the event of the Ghormho’s death.’
The surviving angels were following the debate with interest. Confused, they looked to Jerimiah, the head of the Amew, for guidance. Tentatively, he lowered his head to Sati. ‘What the Bindisore says is truth,’ he said, although the flicker in his hooded eyes revealed his reluctance to speak. ‘The Ghormho is, by Azephim law, the new High Priest of the Web-Kondoell, and by marriage we are obliged to follow the orders of the Bindisore, Sati of Faia.’ He spat the last words out, his wings rustling. Khartyn, aware she was witnessing a historic moment crouched against the furthermost wall, not wishing to draw attention to herself.
‘Jerimiah.’ Rashka turned to face him, her eyes wide. ‘You would turn against me despite my loyalty to the Amew and the Web? You would elect that feckless traitor Ishran, who cries like the Bluite woman he really is?’
Jerimiah turned his stern gaze upon her. ‘You are second egg hatched. The Ghormho, while he is alive, is the new ruler of us all. Hail to the Ghormho!’
‘Hail Ghormho!’ the Azephim echoed, watching for Rashka’s reaction.
Rashka smiled. ‘Then, while he is alive, we must obey the sacred law. Hail, Ghormho!’
The cry was taken up from outside the Hatching grounds as the Web communicated the sensational news that Seleza, loved High Priestess, was now dead and Ishran the Ghormho was the new ruler. Without acknowledging Khartyn or Sati, Rashka spread her wings out to the Amew council, turned on her heel and left the room. With her departure, Sati moved over to Khartyn.
‘Quickly,’ she said. ‘We must leave here, before Rashka crosses to kill Ishran.’
‘I do not care if she does kill Ishran,’ Khartyn replied. ‘All I want is to return to Faia. The Dark Ones promised me a safe passage home if I accompanied them to Kondoell.’ She glanced at the Amew council, who were gathered in a semicircle anxiously discussing what to do with Seleza’s body.
‘I’ll take you home,’ Sati said. ‘The angels are too immersed in politics to give you safe passage.’ She transmuted herself into an immense eagle in front of Khartyn’s eyes. ‘Shapeshift as you did when you escaped from the cage I imprisoned you in,’ the eagle ordered Khartyn. The Crone hesitated, suspicious the Azephim Queen was tricking her, but she had little choice. Focusing on the magical words that enabled her body to change, she became a small finch.
‘Smaller,’ the eagle ordered. ‘To carry you safely, I must hold you in my beak for the journey. You are too old to withstand the shock of crossing the Web. Inside my beak, you will be protected from the rays and we can journey swifter.’
Khartyn, now a tiny finch, fixed a beady eve on her ex-apprentice. The eagle scratched a taloned claw impatiently. ‘You will simply have to trust me. I’ll not swallow you. But make haste! Ishran’s life may be in danger!’
Khartyn could not have cared less about Ishran’s life, but obediently concentrated on making herself smaller. She felt terribly vulnerable when she saw the gigantic size of Sati’s eagle eye, now fixed on her and gleaming cruelly. Terror erupted in her breast as the large pointed beak snatched her up. A tongue pushed her down, and afraid she was going to slide down the bird’s throat, Khartyn wedged her small bird body in the bird’s upper palate. She heard the Amew shouting. The eagle took flight in a sickening, disorientating lurch, then she felt its strong wings beating the air in a muffled, rhythmic sweep.
Never could I have imagined this scenario, Khartyn thought as they gained altitude. She had been witness to some sort of freak killing machine, a hybrid of Eom and Faery. She had been present at the great High Priestess Seleza’s death. Even more unbelievable, she had seen her ex-apprentice and sworn enemy, Sati, defend her to a bloodthirsty, grieving Rashka. And now, here she was flying inside Sati’s own mouth, trusting the Azephim Queen would not accidentally swallow her.
Inside the eagle’s mouth it was dark, wet and hot. She could feel the weird pulsation of the death rays of the Web hitting the bird’s body, and she felt Sati gaining power. Oh Goddess, she was flying between the treacherous death rays with reckless speed! One wrong move and they would be shredded instantly, sucked into the rays. Faster and faster they flew, and Khartyn felt the eagle’s heart pound with excitement as she challenged the deadly radiation around them. Where did you get all this power from? Why, dear Goddess, did you not choose a different path? You would have been the saviour of known worlds. It had always been distressing to her that Sati had chosen to throw away her sacred teachings to live with Ishran in the Wastlelands.
At length Khartyn felt a bump, and found herself unceremoniously spat upon the ground. As her feathers bristled, coated with the eagle’s saliva, she realised they were back in Faia. The enormous eagle materialised into the Bindisore woman Khartyn had loved for so long. Sati had been correct, the crossing had been much easier when she did not have to experience it directly. If it had not been for the saliva and the fear of being swallowed, or of being slashed to pieces in the lethal rays of the Web, it might almost have been described as a pleasant journey.
It took Khartyn only a moment to orientate, and then she realised they were near the Pantehlum of Faia. She transmuted back into her Crone form and wiped a large piece of eagle spittle from her knee. Then she saw the look on Sati’s face. ‘What is it?’ she asked. Fear washed over her in a nauseating burst.
‘Do not look, old Mother,’ Sati said. She put out her hands as if to grab Khartyn. Khartyn’s heart wrenched. Her breath stopped for a second. Even before she turned around, she knew with certainty what she was about to see.
CHAPTER FIVE
Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?
— EPICURUS
Bwani could hear voices floating above his head. Or was it the song of bees? He frowned, looking upwards into light, trying to adjust his vision. He had been badly hurt. He knew this instinctively, and was afraid to move for fear of making his injuries worse. Where was he? For a brief moment he thought the buzzing of one of the bees sounded like the voice of his long time friend Edwen. He tried to call to Edwen but no words came from his mouth. His mouth! It was filled with honey, making speech impossible. Thick, binding honey.
As he got to his feet, the sound of the bees receded into the distance. They seemed to be arguing whether he should be moved. He had made the decision for them, he thought, laughing, although the laughter was a terrible sound, gurgling with the honey in his mouth.
Now he was moving. Scenes flashed past him, idyllic meadows with ilkamas grazing and wild deer, a tropical beach rich in plum and mahogony colours where a Pan-like figure sat on the rocks, playing his pipes and laughing as Bwani passed by. Faster and faster, away from the noisy, interfering, caring bees. He moved quickly past a fairytale castle where a woman looked out of a window. Her gown was deep red and gold, with delicate intricate embroidery; her head was that of a swan. ‘Help me!’ she called to Bwani. ‘Break the spell that holds me here!’ But she was gone before he even had time to react.
Then came a desert where children played on cracked yellow sand, flicking small bones to each other, laughing as they played. Ribs stuck out from their tiny bodies, their hair was bright orange and their teeth pointed and razor sharp.
Next Bwani passed over a fantastic city, where winged people flew between buildings, some throwing flowers at him as he sped past them. Am I dying? Bwani began to wonder. Are these images the last cries of a dying mind? He fought against the idea. He couldn’t die! Maya! He had to return to locate Maya! He remem
bered the great love he had felt for her, and how beautiful she had looked in her red bridal gown before the world had changed.
Bwani stood at a great crossroads fringed by a column of yew trees. Tiny bells dangled in the wind from their branches. The sound should have been peaceful, yet it was disturbing. Mist clung to the ground, reaching to his knees. He glanced around. Despite the disturbing sound of the tree bells, a heavy peace had begun to slip through his body. Ahead in the mist, a figure walked slowly towards him. He squinted, trying to see who it was. At first she seemed to be a young woman, clad in a long simple robe and holding burning torches. Before his eyes she became a triple-formed being, with three bodies standing back to front. She appeared to be looking in all directions at once from the crossroads. Black clouds mushroomed in the sky, and a bolt of lightning shot across the heavens. The triple-headed figure held up an arm as if entreating the sky to be still. Then she was right in front of him and he saw she was slim, black veiled, surrounded by a pack of shadowy wolves. Hecate. She was death. A terrible feeling of loss broke over him that he had not had the chance to say goodbye to Maya. Death had cheated him of that moment. He waited with dread for the figure to lift her pale hands to her veil and reveal her face. When she spoke, her voice was soft, yet low and terrible, and he wished he did not have to hear her words.
‘I am the Keeper of the Keys. The Mother of Monsters. Through me, may the Dreamers’ will be done. I am Queen of the Dead, your saviour and the saviour of all known worlds. What offering have you brought to me, Bwani, warrior who has stood in stone over centuries? You have approached my crossroads. What gifts do you bring to placate she who holds your death in her hands?’
A Fire in the Shell: Circle of Nine Trilogy 3 Page 5