Voices of Blaze Read online

  Morghiad attempted to transfer some form of tranquillity to the horse by the manner of his riding, but his own muscles were too tense to do much of note. Just the idea of meeting with Kalad worried him, and the challenge of employing that particular son to do the task he was set… Blazes!

  Don’t get angry, don’t get angry, don’t get angry.

  Morghiad had begun repeating the words in his head almost hourly since learning that they referred to his impending meeting with Kalad. He would not lose his temper. He loved his only living son, and he would certainly not do anything to compromise Kalad’s life, or allow the monsters in his head to dictate his actions. No.

  He twisted around to check again that he had the sealed documents safely stowed in the saddle bags. Medea had given him no fewer than nine scrolls, which contained important and up-to-date information about Calidell that Kalad would have to familiarise himself with before the talks began. Morghiad was not permitted to read them, to remain as impartial as he could during the discussions, though he doubted there were many secrets he did not already know about.

  “Halt!” a man shouted at him, jumping out from the bushes at the side of the road. He didn’t look to be the cleanest of travellers with his muddied cloak and the unwashed, knotted hair that poked out from beneath his hood.

  Morghiad would have smelled him earlier, if he had not been slightly upwind of the man. He reined Tyshar to a standstill. “I do not have time for pointless distractions,” he warned.

  “Have you seen the light of the fires, warrior?” the man asked in rasping tones.

  Morghiad sighed. The man was clearly a lunatic. “More than you would know.”

  “Oh?” The filthy man raised his caterpillar eyebrows. “Then you have experienced the joys of basking in the flames of She Who Shall Not Be Named?”

  He certainly had. “Her fires are beyond compare. Now, if I may be on my way?”

  But the traveller became agitated suddenly, and he exclaimed to someone else hiding in the bushes. “Ysolta! Ysolta! This man of Hirrah says he knows Her!”

  “Impossible!” A woman so bony that she was only a missed meal away from becoming a skeleton stumbled out from the foliage. “All men from that country are damned. He must accept the salvation-” Her dark eyes widened suddenly. “Light in Achellon – it is him!” Ysolta dropped to her knees before Tyshar, and dragged her companion down to do the same.

  “There’s really no need-” Morghiad began.

  But the hooded man still appeared confused. “I don’t understand-”

  “Porivan, this is the mate of The One True Queen – the sire of her young, to whom she granted immortality.”

  The man blinked suddenly, and then fell flat on the floor beneath him.

  Mate? Couldn’t Morghiad at least be afforded the honour of the title husband in their faith? And Tallyn – surely he deserved some public credit for making his father immortal? Then again, those talents would be a dangerous thing to make common knowledge if Tallyn were ever to be brought back. Morghiad fully believed that Artemi could make such a thing happen, though he feared what sort of price those Law-keepers would ask of her. “Thankful as I am for your… reverence, I must continue on my journey, my friends. It is long and I have much to do.”

  “Of course!” Ysolta said sharply, sitting up. Her skin was like tight leather over her bones. “You must deliver the men of that country from ruin. You will show them the way!”

  Morghiad suppressed an awkward twist of his mouth. “I hope to help them, at the very least.”

  “Mate of She Who Shall Not Be Named, take us with you!”

  “Yes, take us with you,” said another voice from within the trees, and another… and more. The whole place was full of them, and Morghiad had not even detected their presence. Perhaps their worship included some sort of training in certain skills of Artemi’s.

  “What do you call yourselves?” he asked.

  “We are The Followers,” Ysolta said.

  Of course, those had been the ones Beetan had warned of. The most extreme of patriots and zealots. No doubt they would be getting up to all sorts of horrid mischief in Artemi’s name. “And you spread the word of Artemi’s fire?”

  Many of The Followers gasped at the lack of title or sobriquet, and some even looked to the floor in embarrassment. One would have thought that a mate would have the right to name their supreme being, or whatever they thought she was here.

  “It is alright to say her name,” Morghiad ventured.

  “…If that is what she has decreed...” Porivan said with some hesitance.

  “It is,” Morghiad replied. “Now…” He paused as more of The Followers crowded in about him. He had not noticed before, but many of them were pale-skinned and red-haired. And there were similarly flame-headed children in amongst them. This was beyond odd. “Were these children recruited to your cause?”

  “Fortune brought them to us, mate of… of The Fireblade - Blazes warm her. The Followers are her blessed people, and her blood runs through all who resemble her. We shall reproduce in her image, and then one day, she will be reborn amongst us. Then she shall lead us all to the promised future, and to the light.”

  And just how many of those children had been stolen from their parents for these peoples’ cause? Morghiad knew he had a duty to them, but there were other things he had to fix first. The peace of nations had to happen while he was still in such an advantageous position to enable it. Returning these children to their homes would take months, but would be an excellent project when Artemi returned. He hoped for her sake that she would not be reborn amongst these people, ever.

  “Then here are some words from the woman herself. She would not wish you to take any children from the homes into which they are born, and you are not to harm others under any circumstance. Leave the warring and fighting to her.”

  The Followers blinked at him for a moment, and at length Porivan said, “Honoured as you are, Mate of The Fireblade, these words must come from her directly.”

  “I am her message-bearer while she is away,” Morghiad insisted. And a good thing too. Artemi would have yelled and hissed at these people, and declared them all stupid to their faces. Blazes, but he did miss her. “She would like very much for you to adhere to those words, otherwise…” Morghiad put some effort into adding threat to the tone of his voice. He had once been told that he was quite good at it. “…it will not be the beauty of the flames that you know, but the cruelty.”

  Porivan and Ysolta bowed with satisfactory acceptance, and Morghiad was once again reminded that ruling was really not all that bad an occupation. To have people bow before him again! He pushed aside the thought before the monsters became too excited about it, and smiled with approval at the worshippers. “I’m afraid that I cannot take you with me on this mission. This is for me to do alone.” Morghiad did not need to complicate his meeting with Kalad any further than necessary.

  “As you wish,” Ysolta said, “Ah, and if my lord were to see… The Fireblade, Blazes warm her, would he request that she-”

  “I will tell her you are spreading word about her, and I’m sure she would be happy to see you as soon as she is returned.” And happy to throttle them all.

  They bowed again, and Morghiad was permitted to continue on his way. In the hours subsequent to his meeting with The Followers, he wondered at the power of the ideology of those people. How easy it had been for them to construct such fictions about Artemi, and then mould their lives and others about those fictions!

  Morghiad had never made up fictions to consolidate his rule. Silar had recommended it once or twice, and had probably permitted a few fanciful ‘rumours’ to circulate, but Morghiad had never approved them. Far better to be an honest leader. He sighed to himself, and resumed his journey to seek out one of his young.

  Silar quenched the last of the flames by pouring water all over it. This was a game! It was all someone else’s game, and he was the follocking foot soldier in it! “Where are you?!” h
e yelled, throwing the empty bucket away. “I know you’re here! I know you watch me! Reveal yourselves to me!”

  The woodland remained completely silent and unmoving. This was truly a place where the even the most boring of men would die through madness. Silar was quite sure that he was already insane. “May you burn in the blazed light of this place! All of you! Hiding like cowards!”

  Talia. Talia was lost.

  Silar leapt into a sprint through the trees. There had to be an end to them somewhere – an edge where this lunacy ended and reality began again. He ran, and ran, and shouted at the people who never answered, he hammered his fists against the dry bark of the tree trunks, and ran some more. Eventually, and with the forest seeming to stretch in front of him as far as he could see, he exhausted his lungs and could go no further. He dropped to his knees with a groan. “Cowards with cheese for backbones!” he said again.

  “This is useless! He hasn’t learned a blazed thing! He is too stupid!”

  Silar looked to the source of the voice, and saw three women and a young boy standing there. Instead of clothing, they wore veils of mist. Where they should have had eyes, there were black holes, and with the exception of the boy, each of those was filled with bright orange flame. The child’s eye-fires were ice blue. Where had Silar seen that colour before?

  “You!” He tried to approach them to wring at least one of their necks, but a wall of air prevented it. Burn them to charcoal and dust! Blazed, bloody wielders had to be a product of this place! It made perfect sense! “I am not stupid,” Silar said slowly, but the women continued their conversation as if he had not spoken.

  “Oh, quiet, Leandra!” exclaimed a willowy woman with pale curls. “What do you suppose we should do with him?”

  The one with creases in her face replied, “We have no choice. We have to start again.”

  “There isn’t enough time for that!” the darker woman with a nose like an axe - a woman who was presumably Leandra - said.

  Silar smirked at each of them. “You know, for rulers of all the worlds of light and this one, you three fluff-skirts do come across as rather incompetent. Perhaps I should put each of you over my knee and give you a good spanking instead. You’re all pretty enough for it, even her.” He nodded toward the one with crinkled skin. “How does that sound?”

  “Silence, idiot boy!”

  Silar had prepared a very witty retort indeed, but when he went to open his mouth to deliver it, nothing happened. His mouth had seized shut. He raised a hand to inspect his lips, which were still very much there, but found them utterly unresponsive to his command to open. Follocking light of the fires, what had they done to him?

  “We need to try something else,” Leandra said, “We need to push him harder.”

  Talia! Silar tried to roar at them through his unmoving lips. I’ll do your bidding if you just give me Talia!

  “Do you think if he knew his importance -?” the tallest of them began.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! He already thinks far too much of himself!”

  “No, Tiranna has a point,” Leandra said, swirling her clothing mists about with a free hand, “There are things he does not know – things that can focus the mind of a fireless Darkworlder.”

  The woman with creases in her face looked to the boy who clutched her leg. “What do you think, little Erowan?”

  His fate was to be decided by a child? Silar growled through his locked mouth. He could do that much, at least.

  “Don’t kill him,” the child said, and Silar felt his shoulders slump with relief. “No. I think…” Erowan pursed his lips. “Make him drink ale. It’s funny.”

  “Ale?” Tiranna raised a golden eyebrow. “What a wonderful idea.”

  No! Silar tried to say. No more damned beer!

  “There are no choices for you here, Lord Forllan,” Leandra said calmly. “Open wide.” She lifted an orange flagon from beneath the mists of her clothing and began to pour it.

  The ale should have soaked his hair and run down his shirt, but instead he found his head pulled back and his mouth forced open. The cool liquid coursed down his throat without impedance, and it tasted good. No – no blazed drink! It filled his belly and made his limbs tingle. He was here for Talia! His mind began to drift. Talia, forgive me!

  Chapter 3

  Mirel had been awake for a good three hours before dawn finally broke over the Wilrean mountains, and heat of the fires, that had been a beautiful sight to see! How she had missed the warmth and the light of the sun! It was well aloft in the sky now, and the native birds were busy making their territories known by calling and chirruping to others of their species. In years gone by, Mirel would have found the noises of the little, winged rats somewhat tiresome, and would have swept them from the sky with a hefty broom of ice. At that moment however, she was almost happy to endure them. She would kill a few with a proper blade later, she reassured herself.

  The sound of light snoring whispered through the birdsong, and Mirel found herself drawn to the source of it. Her father lay sleeping amid a pile of leaves, seemingly unaware of the horrors that loomed over his world. He was a fool, Mirel thought, but a loyal one nevertheless. She would grant him safety and her protection when the end came. He had earned that much from her. Perhaps she would even donate a small patch of land for him to call his own when she became empress of whatever remnants of civilisation would last into the future. That would be very generous of her, she considered, but she rather thought he might like it.

  “Even Kusuru warriors must sleep, sister.” Lannda approached, the brown leaves seeming to curl and wither in her footsteps. In spite of being both vanha-sielu and wielder, Lannda had simply never possessed the right attitude to be Kusuru. The Daisain had tested her of course, just as he had tested countless other enduring souls, but surprisingly few had the desire to kill in their bones. Even Artemi had been a weak candidate when she had first been recruited, and that weakness had never truly left her.

  “I have had plenty of time for that,” Mirel said.

  “The Daisain has a plan for you, and it will require you to be well-rested.”

  The Daisain, alive! She had barely believed it when the Law-keepers had spoken of the possibility, but when she had seen the Son of Panthers standing before her prison cell… it could have been no one else’s training in him but The Daisain’s. “Just before I cut through master’s throat, he told me he would come back, Lann, but I never thought it would truly happen – it was master’s fault, of course – his choice. He brought that death upon himself. But he’s not like you and I-”

  Lannda nodded. “It was our blessed Law-keepers’ own error to allow what happened with your… accident of memories.”

  Law-keepers! Hah! Lannda still believed they possessed endless powers, but she was ignorant. The Daisain was their creation, but he had outgrown them long ago; he made all decisions. He always had. “It was no mistake. It made me stronger – it made me see. Our master engineered it.” Mirel did not attempt to hide the threat in her voice.

  “Perhaps. But the Law-keepers have ultimate responsibility, and they should have admitted that they were too arrogant to accept he was needed, even with his faults, and that a man like him would be necessary to put their other mistakes right. They should never have allowed him to die at your hand.”

  They were not powerful enough to make such allowances… “They should never have tried to make a new one,” Mirel said.

  Lannda drew her lips into a thin line. “Perhaps. The Daisain was foolhardy with you, but I believe he has learned his lesson, and he is strong. The younger one has proved to be too… weakened by sentimentality, and his skills have come on far too slowly when time is so limited. Perhaps he will come to a broader point of view eventually. I’m told the Law-keepers are working on him as we speak. But The Daisain remains focussed. He will leave his current accommodations and join us in good time.”

  “Did he give you any indication as to when that might be?”

  Her
sister shook her head. Lannda was a curious-looking woman: all earthy skin and hair and fingernails full of dirt. But she dressed like a noblewoman, and carried herself like the most serene of empresses. Aside from their shared grace, no one would ever have believed they were sisters.

  “I need to bathe,” Mirel said softly. Her imprisonment, combined with so many days and nights of riding, had made her smell truly revolting. She had managed to drag a dagger through the worst of her hair on their second stop to change horses, but it still required some dedicated attention in order to make her look civilised.

  She departed her sister’s side and wandered down to one of the smaller mountain lakes near their camp. It was silver-coated by the daylight, and seemingly devoid of any wildlife. At that time of year, it would be colder than any bath the Furini would have known, but she hardly cared. The sensations of surfaces other than white crystal against her feet, or of scents other than her own body, or of sounds other than dripping cave water were still small revelations. And the sky… she had not recalled it ever being so… big.

  Once she had divested herself of the clothes her sister had so thoughtfully provided her with, Mirel collapsed into the lake. It did feel rather icy against the skin of her back, but it was nothing she could not bear. She closed her eyes and permitted her mind to drift. As always, her first thoughts focussed on the threat of what loomed ahead, the warnings from the Law-keepers and all of the other babble they had spouted at her. Snows of Forda, those fools had gone on about things she already knew!

  Her second thought was of Erowan, though it was irritating that her consciousness bothered with him at all. There were more important things than her son, and the way in which the Law-keepers had gone about making her produce him was evidence enough that he ought not to exist at all. No woman should ever be made to endure such treatment, or be forced to bear a child against her will. It was bad enough that the Law-keepers were idiots, but truly a terrible thing that they had such influence in all senses of the word. At the very least, Mirel hoped the boy would be grateful for the blood that ran in his veins. It was very fine blood.