Marie Brennan - In Ashes Lie

“Arm myself? For what?”

“They’ve fired St. Laurence Pountney!”

“They?” His sword-bearing friend had other friends, pounding up behind him, all equally ill armed. Jack, carrying only an eating-knife, began to think about losing himself once more in the Cannon masses.

One of the men said, “The papists, of course! Thousands of them! French papists are firing houses and churches—one of them threw a fire-ball into the steeple of St. Laurence!”

The last thing Jack felt like doing was laughing, but he made his best effort at light derision. “A good arm he must have, then; it’s one of the tallest steeples in town. I saw the church go, my friends; it was nothing more than a spark, that melted through the leading into the timber underneath.” A spark flung with intent. But not by anything human, nor anything their swords could touch.

“But the papists—”

“ There are no papists. All you’ll find here are men throwing themselves, body and soul, into stopping the Fire.” Men, and fae; Christ, he was supposed to be waiting in Cannon Street for Irrith to find him, with word on the efforts of the river fae. He fought the urge to shake the clowns facing him. “If you want to be of use, put down those weapons, and go fetch a fire-hook from your parish church. The King has given orders; the houses are to be pulled down.”

They stared. Jack was no commander of men, but he had used his last ounce of patience, and the raw force left behind sufficed. “Go!”

They went.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: noon

At Jack’s renewed touch, the worst of the Cailleach’s chill receded, leaving Lune drained and shaking. Sun and Moon. This, then, is the consequence of being connected to one’s realm; I suffer as it does. And worse than my subjects do.

“The King is at Queenhithe,” he said, once she had caught her breath, “with the Duke of York, to give heart to the people. They hope to stop the Fire at Three Cranes Wharf in the west, and St. Botolph’s Wharf in the east. There’s great fear that it will reach the Tower, and the munitions stored there.”

The mere thought chilled her as badly as the wind. No doubt the work of emptying the Tower had already begun, but how long would it take to clear the fortress of all its powder? Such an explosion could destroy the City.

Jack was white underneath the filth that marred his face, and he had long since stripped to his linen shirt against the heat of the Fire; now he shivered madly, despite the cloak that wrapped him. “The wind is checking the spread eastward, of course, but that’s not much blessing, for it also feeds the flames west. Our efforts slow the Fire’s progress, but don’t stop it. When we made a gap, we were driven back before we could clear the debris. We might as well have laid a path for the damned thing. If—”

He hesitated, looking down at her, then completed the thought. “If we did not have to contend with the wind, we might stand a chance.”

She had all morning to think of that. A wind did not have a wellspring, not as a river did; the Cailleach was not crouched outside the eastern wall, puffing away at London. But Lune had tried another method of stopping her. “I sent a messenger, asking for a brief truce,” she said. “Nicneven’s quarrel is with me and my court, not the mortals of London.”

“And?”

Jack read the answer in her eyes, sparing her from having to say it. He gritted his teeth, took a deep breath, and said, “She doesn’t care.”

Or at least her commander here did not. There was an encampment of Scottish fae somewhere outside the City, awaiting their chance to attack. Once the court was weakened enough, or fled, they would move in and claim what they had come for.

As if he could read her thoughts, Jack said, “Why not give it to her?”

Lune turned away, wrapping her own cloak more tightly. “No. I am not giving Nicneven Ifarren Vidar.”

Faint noises told her Jack started and stopped three replies before he spoke clearly. “So you’ve said, and I’m sure you have your reasons—and perhaps when we have a little leisure, you’ll see fit to share them with me. But Lune…what will that mean for London?”

The Fire still scorched her mind, spreading ever outward. The City had not seen a disaster this great in ages, and it showed no sign of ending. But the true problem was not Nicneven and the Cailleach Bheur, not for the people above; for them, the Cailleach’s breath was mere wind. The problem was the Dragon, the elemental, ravening force that devoured all in its path. That was what they must strike at.

But what power could stand against it, with half the riverside its domain?

The river.

“Come with me,” Lune said, and swept from the room without looking to see if Jack would follow.

The Onyx Hall seemed half-empty; some of her people had fled, even without protection. Others cowered in futile defense against the wind. Nianna staggered through a crossing ahead of Lune, tearing her hair out in clumps; they withered to gray in her hands, and the lady whimpered in horror. Lune seized her and snapped, “Go above. Do not worry about bread. Come below again when the bells drive you, but Sun and Moon, get yourself out of here. ”

Nianna stared; Lune was not sure the lady even heard her. But she could not spare the time to make certain. She went on through her half-deserted palace, seeking out an entrance she never used.

Water lapped at the stone in a neat square, in a chamber otherwise unadorned. This was not a part of the Onyx Hall anyone dwelt in, and few of her subjects came here; its use was small for anyone not born of water. But it was the one place in her entire realm where the palace connected directly to the Thames, through the tiny harbor of Queenhithe.

Lune knelt at the water’s edge, and beckoned for Jack to do the same. “The King is very nearly above your head,” he told her, craning his neck.

“It is not the King I seek to contact. We need Father Thames.”

He blinked. When she did not tell him it was a jest, his jaw came loose. “You talk to the river?”

“On occasion.” Once. Ages ago. Father Thames little concerned himself with the politics of the Onyx Hall. Even those fae who were his children almost never heard his voice. One of the nymphs told Lune she thought the great river spirit slept, borne down by the weight of the city upon his shores.

If ever there was a time for him to wake, it had come.

Lune extended her left hand to Jack, who was still gaping. “He may answer us, if we call him together.” Or he may not. She had not the leisure for the sort of ritual she had engaged in before. But she was tied to London, and Jack with her; she hoped that would count for something. The river had answered to mortal and faerie voices before.

“I have no idea how to do this,” he warned her as he took her hand.

“Simply call him,” she said, reaching their joined fingers down into the water. “Bid him wake, and fight the Dragon who roars along his bank. Else it will cross to Southwark ere long, and consume more of London besides. A Great Fire has been born in our City; only a Great River may quench it.”

Her words were spoken as much to the water as to the Prince. His eyes had drifted shut, listening to the cadence; when she faltered, he continued on, in his own less than formal way. “We hope you do not mind the, er, theft of your waters—I’m sure you understand the need. But however many buckets we throw, they are not enough; we need you. Help your children against this threat.”

Lune’s left hand was chilled to the bone, but not from the Cailleach’s wind. Gripped hard by Jack, she was for the moment safe from that attack; what she felt instead was an immensity, stretching from the headwaters far west to the sea far east, washing to and fro in the tides of the moon. Old Father Thames was, ages before London was dreamt, and would be long after they were gone. Measured against him, even fae were young.