Энтони Райан - Queen of Fire

Vaelin saw Kiral shift in discomfort and knew what her song told her; this was a man fully expecting never to hear the Jade Princess again. We bring his doom, thatʼs what he fears.

“I heard a story once,” he said to Erlin. “A tale about a Renfaelin knight saved from death by a boy with the power to heal, travelling in company with a man who couldnʼt die. The knight related how this man sought to preserve the Gifted in the hope that one would be born to the Realm with the power to kill him, for he was tired of his endless life.”

“Tired?” Erlin reclined a little, pursing his lips in contemplation. “Life is endless sensation, ceaseless change and boundless variety. We are not made to tire of it, and I havenʼt. But I have always known it would end, as many years as I have had, I cannot endure forever, nor should I. The Jade Princess knew that, the first time I sought her out, hoping for an answer, a reason why I stayed young whilst others aged, why those around me perished from plague or sickness and I did not. She gave no answer, as is her wont. Many who climb the treacherous path to the temple are often sent away disappointed, and even those to whom she chooses to speak find her words opaque, often beyond their ability to decipher. But though she gave no answer, she did allow me to hear her song, and that was answer enough. There is a flaw in it, you see. Small, barely perceptible to the untutored ear, but to one as long-lived as I, as jarring as an apprentice minstrel stumbling over his first chords. Itʼs but a brief sequence of notes, so complex as to be beyond the skill of perhaps all who ever held a harp, even her. Her song is not perfected, she hasnʼt finished, perhaps she never will.”

A three-day march brought them in sight of the only settlement they had seen, a small cluster of stone houses at the foot of a flat-topped mountain. The air had a faint sulphurous tint and the sky above continually shrouded in roiling grey cloud, darkening to black in the east where the fire mountains raged ever brighter. Erlin had them halt a mile short of the settlement where a number of figures could be seen running from the dwellings, perhaps a hundred, all armed.

“The Laretha donʼt have many visitors,” Erlin said. “Theyʼre small in number and living so close to the fire mountains provides a certain security.” He turned to Vaelin, gesturing towards the settlement. “Theyʼll expect to parley with the chieftain of this new tribe.”

Vaelin asked Astorek to join him as they followed Erlin towards the settlement where the warriors stood in a thin but steady line. They were mostly men, all armed with either an axe or a long, narrow-bladed spear. They all wore calf-length kilts of leather, decorated with various painted symbols, and breastplates of bronze that gleamed dully in the muted daylight. A stocky man of middling years stood in the centre of their line, an axe clutched in either hand, long greying hair tied back from his face in thick braids. His rigid posture seemed to relax a little at the sight of Erlin, but his countenance remained fierce with suspicion as he scanned Vaelin then darkened into rage at the sight of Astorek. He raised both axes as they neared, his people immediately adopting a fighting stance on either side.

“Pertak!” Erlin called to the stocky man, smiling in welcome then gesturing to Vaelin and Astorek as he spoke on.

“He says he brings many allies to the Laretha,” Astorek reported. Vaelin noted the deep unease on the shamanʼs brow. “This is foolishness, Ravenʼs Shadow. These people offer only death to outsiders.”

Vaelin nodded at Erlin, now approaching the chieftain with arms spread. “But not to him.”

Erlin halted a few feet short of the chieftain, his words soft and lost to them, though the tribesmanʼs countenance lost some of its fierceness, if none of its suspicion. After a few moments Erlin turned and beckoned them forth. “Pertak, Chieftain of the Laretha, demands tribute if you are to besmirch his lands with your presence,” he said, though Vaelin had yet to see the stocky man speak.

“Tribute?” he asked.

“A symbolic offering only,” Erlin explained. “If he allows you to stay without it he appears weak and one of the younger men will challenge him.”

The chieftain spoke, pointing one of his axes at the assembled ranks of ice folk and voicing a guttural demand. Vaelin followed its course to find the axe pointed to where Dahrena stood holding Scarʼs reins. “He wants my horse?”

“Ah, no.” Erlin gave a tight smile. “He wants your woman.”

“That is not acceptable.” Vaelinʼs hand went to a pouch on his belt, loosing the ties to extract a stone, a finely cut ruby of medium weight given to him by Governor Aruan at the Linesh dockside barely two years ago, though it seemed like many more now. There had been times when he had been tempted to sell it, especially when on the road, Reva being so constantly hungry, but the blood-song had flared in warning whenever he considered it. He hoped this was why.

The chieftain dropped one of his axes to catch the gem as Vaelin tossed it to him, eyes wide with instant fascination. The warriors on either side of him forgot their discipline to crowd round, every face lit with an enthralled greed. Pertak snarled something, raising his remaining axe in warning, and they shrank back, though their gaze returned continually to the ruby.

Pertak spoke again, directing his question to Vaelin as he held the ruby up to the light. “He wants to know what power it holds,” Astorek translated, a faint note of contempt colouring his voice.

“The mountains are rich in ore,” Erlin said, “but not gems. They have a certain irrational regard for them.”

“Tell him it has the power to capture menʼs souls,” Vaelin said. “He really shouldnʼt stare at it for too long.”

A brief gleam of fear shone in the chieftainʼs eyes as Erlin related the warning, his fist closing over the stone in a fierce grip before he raised his gaze to Vaelin, squinting in contemplation. He grunted a short clipped sentence and, with considerable deliberation, turned his back and walked towards the settlement, his small host following close, all concern at the arrival of such a large body of intruders now apparently vanished.

“You may stay one day and one night,” Erlin said. “A most generous concession, I must say.”

“Is that enough?” Vaelin asked him. “For our purposes?”

Erlin looked up at the mountain towering above the settlement, the flattened summit part obscured by a thin mist. “Youʼll find time loses its meaning here, brother.”

He forbade anyone but Vaelin from accompanying him, though Dahrena and the other Gifted protested loudly. “We have come so far,” Cara said. “To be denied knowledge now…”

“I seek to preserve,” Erlin broke in, “not to deny. Trust me, you would not thank me for this knowledge.”

He led Vaelin to a track that curved around the Laretha settlement to the base of the mountain, halting amidst a cluster of ruins. Vaelin scanned the granite blocks and part-tumbled walls, finding a familiarity in the way they had been shaped, the elegance of their line and the wind-blasted motifs carved into the stone. “The Fallen City,” he said. “This place was built by the same hands.”

“Not quite,” Erlin replied. “Though they shared the same language.” He gestured to a stairwell rising from the ruins to join with the flank of the mountain, Vaelinʼs eyes picking out more steps carved into the stone, ascending in a winding track all the way to the top. “And the same gods.”

“So,” Erlin said as they climbed, the steps damp from the perennial mist and the air growing chill around them, “you no longer hold to the Faith.”