ARC: Sunstone (26 page)

III

They camped that night in what they came to call the Broken Room, all nine of them, Veris and Umbra alike, bound together by misfortune and a rising sense of despair as to what they were going to do now their dreams had been destroyed.

They had built a fire from dry brush and a few larger logs left lying around. From looking at the landscape, it seemed that wood was in short supply, most trees and plants having long since been burned away. Raging fires tore across the countryside, ravaging everything in their paths, and the lakes of lava poured down from the numerous volcanoes, flooding the land with scarlet. But up here, scattered around the Broken Room, odds and ends of wood still remained.

“I do not think the Incendi know of this room,” Geve remarked. “Surely they would have razed it by now.”

Most of them sat in a circle around the fire. Sarra was the only one who had removed herself from the others, and she now lay to one side, lying down, curled up. The fire was for light more than comfort, as the whole place was hot and humid and the flames only made the heat worse. It was almost dark, although the fires lit the sky with a yellowish-grey haze, little different to the day.

“What is to raze?” said Josse. “A few lumps of wood and dried mosses?”

Geve said nothing, turning instead to Sarra. “Would you like something to eat?”

She tried to give him a smile, but could only manage a twitch of her lips. “No, thank you.”

“You should eat,” Comminor said. “You need your strength.”

Several of them glanced at her stomach, and she had to fight not to cover herself with her hands. Not that she could have. In two days it looked as if the baby had grown enough for two months, and if she looked closely she could almost see the bump burgeoning. She swallowed down the fear and looked away.

The rest of them passed around a small amount of dried salamander meat, and they broke off pieces of one of Amabil’s cakes, washing it down with a swig of water. None of them mentioned that their supplies would not last more than a few days.

Geve finished his mouthful, swigged the water and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “So. I think it is probably time you told us what you know.” Sarra saw him look directly at Comminor.

The Chief Select glanced at her, and she pushed herself upright.

“Yes,” she said. “We are all in this together now. We deserve to know.”

He looked into the flames. Then he nodded.

“It is a burden I have carried for a long time. Maybe too long. I am the latest in a long line of Chief Selects, and all those who came before me passed on their knowledge to the next in line. What we call Chief Selects were once called the Nox Aves – the Night Birds. The Nox Aves have been scholars for thousands of years. They were holders of sacred knowledge before the Embers was formed, and they wrote this knowledge down in two volumes of a book they called the
Quercetum
. I have these books in my rooms in the palace. They contain a history of many things that have happened to this land, which was once called Anguis.”

He proceeded to tell them some of its history, and Sarra listened to the fantastical tale with growing shock. Comminor told of a war between the elements, of the superiority of earth, of the rise of water leading to the invasion of the Darkwater Lords, and then the rise of fire, which had brought about the Incendi superiority. He told them of the God Animus who had cried tears that fell to the earth, and how the Pectoris had grown around the tears and become the heart of the Arbor, and how the Arbor had spread Animus’s love to all corners of the land through its roots.

He told them that they now lived in the Third Age of Anguis, and that the Arbor connected not only space but time, and that it could remember its past and see into its future. It had foreseen the rise of the Incendi, and although it could not stop it, it had the power to bring together a triumvirate of events that had occurred in three different Ages to form the Apex – a peak of energy that could ultimately bring about the fall of the element of fire and the rise once again of the element of earth.

The trouble was, Comminor explained, that the writers of the
Quercetum
knew only of the events of the first two parts of the Apex. They could neither see when the third part would occur, nor what the final outcome would be.

“So do
you
know when this third part is supposed to happen?” Nele asked.

“No,” said Comminor. “I have no idea.”

“Could it be now?” Betune asked.

Comminor hesitated. He looked across at Sarra. She did not miss the softening of his expression. “Maybe. The growth of Sarra’s child and the strange events that have occurred leading up to this point suggest that could be the case. But I do not know how this will play out. Or whether it will be successful.”

“So the dreams we have all had,” said Amabil softly, “of the grass and the sky and birds… We were not seeing the future? We were seeing the past?”

Again he hesitated. “I do not have all the answers. Perhaps we
were
seeing the future, and the land will be returned as it once was. I do not know.”

“But the Arbor,” Betune said in a small voice. “The Arbor is gone.”

Comminor looked out across the barren land. “Yes.”

Sarra caught her breath. She had known, of course, that there was no way the tree could have survived in that desolate landscape. But hearing the words made an ache grow inside her that wouldn’t go away.

“So these Incendi,” said Josse, “they once existed inside the mountains, in the Embers?”

“Certainly in the caves surrounding the Embers,” Comminor replied. “I do not know if they ever lived in the Embers itself. There is no evidence for that, none of their paintings or carvings. And many of our caves we dug out for ourselves. The Embers was made to be isolated and self-sufficient, that is why our forebears created it. We were a pocket of resistance against the Incendi invasion, and were meant to survive to fight back one day.”

“If the Nox Aves knew about the Apex and what was going to happen to the Arbor, why did they not try to stop it?” Amabil looked near to tears.

Comminor ran his hands through his hair – a gesture that Sarra knew meant he was struggling to hide his impatience. “Because the Apex cannot be stopped. It is set in time and space, a fixed event. If the Nox Aves attempted to stop it, it would forever alter the path of time and the way events transpired, and they could not know whether this would mean the Incendi would forever remain in the ascendant. All they could do was let the Arbor guide us in all three ages to come together to try to defeat them when the moment arose.”

They all fell silent, lost in their thoughts as they stared into the flames. Sarra moved to sit with her back against the wall, rubbing her bump tiredly. She closed her eyes, wishing she had never started out on this journey. How foolish she had been, to follow her dreams, to believe her son was going to lead her to the Surface. Well, of course, it could be argued that he had, but none of it had turned out as she had thought it would.

And she had only had dreams of the green and blue land for the last few months. How awful must it be for the other Veris, who had dreamed of the Arbor since childhood? The hope of finding it had sustained them all their lives, and now they had discovered their dreams were like burnt paper, flying away in the wind.

She wished she understood the things Comminor talked about – convergences of time, connections, and the Arbor’s plans for the Incendi, but her brain hurt and she was so tired that everything seemed to merge together, like when she had tried to paint and the wood was wet, and the colours had blended into one. All she could think about was her son, that she had failed him, because what kind of life could she give him in this world?

They would have to go back. The realisation dawned on her slowly. There was no other option – here they had no food, and she had seen no sign of a river in the landscape before it got dark. But if they went back, what would happen to her baby? If it were any other woman, Comminor would demand the pregnancy be terminated, although she was much further along now than when it usually happened. Would he be able to bring himself to kill a newborn baby? Would he be able to bring himself to kill
her
baby? She had seen the way he looked at her, his expression softening. He loved her. Before he knew about her being part of the Veris, he had promised to treat the child as his own. Had that changed?

What option did she have? If she stayed here, they would both die, her and the baby.

She opened her eyes and looked out across the bleak landscape. Through the darkness, volcanoes spat lava and fires leapt in a brief blaze of light before succumbing to the night again. Small, glowing forms moved across the parched earth, Incendi elementals, scorching everything in their path. The world looked dead, defeated.

She had never felt so low. She had really believed she would find the Arbor and the land she had dreamed about over the past few months.
Why?
She whispered the word as she stroked her belly. Why had she had those visions of her child? Had it all been an amazing creation conjured up by her mind? A tear ran down her cheek. She had been so foolish. Convinced she was special, she had risked the lives of herself and her baby, as well as the other people who had followed her there. Amabil and Betune, trusting Nele, poor Kytte who had died as well as the member of the Umbra who had also hit the rock, and Geve… She bit her lip. Poor Geve. He had once told her he would follow her to the end of the world. Well, now he had, hadn’t he?

A hand touched her face and brushed away the tear and she opened her eyes, expecting to see Geve, surprised to find it was Comminor.

“Do not cry,” he murmured.

Another tear joined the first. “I cannot help it.”

“I tried to stop you,” he said.

“Perhaps you should just have told me the truth,” she snapped.

“And what do you think the truth will do to the people of the Embers?” He bent his head to look at her, and a fire leapt in the distance, highlighting his silver hair with orange. “Do you think it will lift their spirits to know they were driven underground by a creature that roams the land they once stood on? That there is no hope of them ever seeing the sun and the grass again?”

“What about the Apex?” she whispered. “You said it will happen one day.”

“It could be thousands of years in our future. Which is why I and the other Nox Aves who came before me have done our best to keep our people safe until it happens, and that means hiding the truth, and keeping them in the dark, metaphorically as well as literally, until the time comes.”

Sarra closed her eyes. “I am tired.”

“I will leave you to sleep.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, then moved away.

She squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip.
That means hiding the truth.

They couldn’t go back. Comminor would not let them return. Because if they did, he ran the risk that one of them would tell the others what they knew, and the truth would be out.

She opened her eyes and watched a fire briefly flare in the distance. And as the flames flickered out, so did the last remnant of hope.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I

Horada crouched low in the semi-darkness and felt Julen slip down the wall to the ground beside her. She knew they should keep running and put as much distance between them and the Incendi as they could, but something was bothering her, and she couldn’t keep it to herself any longer.

“I have something to tell you,” she said to her brother.

“What is it?” He moved the hand that held the flame closer to her so he could see her face. She had been startled by the fact that he could create fire, but after seeing what else the pendants could do, it no longer seemed so shocking.

She took comfort from his deep voice, his reassuring presence, the familiar, strong features of his face. He had ventured alone deep into the mountains to rescue her, had been guided by the Arbor, had frozen the elementals and been part of the connection with the people from the future. She had always felt a kind of awe toward him, but that had now increased a hundredfold with the events of the past few hours.

“It is Orsin,” she said. “When Pyra tried to tempt me to give in, he showed me a vision of my family in trouble – you surrounded by elementals, Mother being chased by a Wulfian lord, and Orsin… I saw Pyra tempting him with visions of earthly pleasures, things Orsin is going to find very difficult to refuse. Julen, I think Pyra has somehow possessed him.”

Julen fell silent for a while. Then he said, “Why? What would the Incendi king possibly want with our brother?”

Horada heard the scorn in his words. “You should not think so little of him,” she scolded.

“He is weak and foolish,” Julen snapped. “I should have foreseen this.”

“He is neither weak nor foolish. It is just that he has not yet found his purpose. He misses our father. Although he is his heir, and although our mother has little respect for him too, I think he has her love of adventure and the open road. But he has not been allowed to embrace that. He lives – or has lived up until now anyway – in a time of peace, and so he has not been able to fully hone his talents which, I am sure, lie in the art of war. He was born into the wrong time, and Pyra has taken advantage of his restlessness and lack of direction by appealing to his love of wine and women.”

“Like I said, he is weak.”

“Julen!” She sighed. “Not every man has your inner strength. Orsin needs focus, and he does not have that at the moment.”

“That, my dear, is the understatement of the year.”

She pushed herself to her feet crossly. “Do not be so patronising. Orsin does not have your special talent – he has rarely been made to feel special. Do you think he finds it easy to watch you go off with the Peacemaker to do dangerous missions Arbor-knows-where? He craves that excitement but has nothing apparent to offer.”

He stood next to her. “And neither have the majority of people who lived in Anguis, but they do not defect to the enemy. Orsin is spoilt and he is throwing his rattle out of the bassinet. He is flattered by Pyra’s attention and, as you say, is enjoying feeling special. He does not realise the King is just using him, and that when Pyra is finished, he will chew him up and spit him out and that will be the end of him, if not the end of all of us.”

Horada studied her brother silently, noting his furious features, his lowered voice that held a hint of menace. His use of the word defect told her that he was angry that Orsin had gone over to the other side, and concerned as to what this meant for their cause. She had only been thinking about her brother, but Julen had greater things on his mind. He was old beyond his years, and carried a weight that a young man should not have to convey on his shoulders.

“What do you want to do?” she asked quietly.

He looked at his feet and took a couple of deep breaths, calming himself. Then he bent and picked up the lantern. “We shall have to go and rescue him.”

She stared at him. Then she walked forward and slid her arms around him.

Still holding the lantern, he put his arms around her and hugged her. “We will find him, do not worry.”

She said nothing, briefly overwhelmed with emotion, mainly with relief that he wanted to rescue their brother, although she could not suppress a shiver of fear at the thought of going back into the heart of the place.

“You can stay here if you wish,” he said, reading her mind.

She shook her head. Her heart pounded, but she said, “No. It is better if we stay together.”

Their minds made up, they moved into the heart of the Incendi caves. Repeatedly they saw the corridors ahead blaze with the presence of fiery elemental forms, but each time Julen pulled them aside into empty cells, warned by the warmth of the pendant he held in his hand.

To Horada – already lost in the vast network of caves – Julen’s turns left and right could have been guesses as far as she knew, and she followed him blindly, holding on to his arm, hoping he wasn’t imagining the way the Arbor led him through the tunnels.

It felt like hours passed, but ultimately they found Orsin quicker than she had expected. Julen pressed her back against the wall of a corridor, gestured to the right and whispered, “He is just down there.”

They waited, and she could see in the light of the flame the way the pulse beat rapidly in his throat. He remained calm, however, showing no signs of the panic she herself felt. He had done this often, she thought, acted in tense situations, and he was used to thinking on his feet. He had led such a different life to her, and she envied him for his freedom and the excitement that he must have experienced in his adventures.

“Where are we?” she whispered.

“Some kind of antechamber. He is surrounded by elementals.”

Her heart pounded. “How will we get close to him?”

He clasped the pendant around his neck, closed his eyes and murmured something beneath his breath. She remembered the way he had done the same in the chamber where she had been imprisoned, how light had radiated from him, turning the room to ice. Somehow, he had connected to the Arbor, had forged a link and the holy tree had helped him. Would he do it again?

“Now,” he whispered, and together they stepped into the chamber.

The stone under Horada’s feet vibrated – not like in the grand ceremonial chamber where Julen had rescued her and the barrier between the times had been opened – it was much more subtle than that. It was like a cart rumbling along the ground towards them, and she felt it pass under her, then fan out into the room. She opened her mouth to ask what it was, then saw the sunstone in Julen’s pendant glowing and remembered what he had told her about energy travelling through the Arbor’s roots. Was that what was happening here?

The room was similar to the ceremonial one, slightly smaller but still ringed with a channel of slowly moving magma that swirled into a large central pit. To one side a large chair stood filled with plump cushions and beside it a table stacked with a plate of luxurious food and flasks of ale and wine. In the chair sat Orsin, slightly slumped, and in front of him two young semi-naked women were dancing in a rather lewd manner, Horada still managed to think through the fear.

Around the room, half a dozen elementals stood watching the scene before them. Horada could not make out their faces, but she sensed somehow that the emotion they exuded was disdain.

As she and Julen moved into the room, the elementals saw them and emitted a loud crackling sound. The magma pit stirred, and to Horada’s horror the magma rose, took shape and formed the firebird king, who had obviously been relaxing in the pit as he watched Orsin be tantalised and teased.

Orsin glanced over and sat up hurriedly, food falling from his lap onto the floor. Pyra turned towards them and hissed, breathing a long column of flame that shot in their direction. Julen passed his hand from left to right across his chest in front of the pendant, and the air filled with a glittering dust.

Horada had backed up against the wall and could feel the onset of panic at the realisation that the Incendi king was in the room, but even as a terrified scream rose in her throat, she saw that the elementals and the girls stood like statues, and the stream of flame that emitted from Pyra was moving at a fingernail’s distance at a time. So slowed, then, not stopped.

“What..?” she began, but Julen interrupted her.

“We do not have long.” He strode towards his brother. “What in Arbor’s name do you think you are doing?”

Orsin pushed aside the plate on his lap and stood. “Do not use that tone of voice with me.”

Julen stepped up onto the small dais and faced his brother. Orsin was taller and broader than Julen, but somehow Julen managed to hold his own as he stared up at Orsin with barely held back contempt. “Oh, you think you deserve respect, sitting here indulging your earthly pleasures with our enemies?”

“Your enemies,” Orsin corrected. “Not mine.”

“By the Arbor, you are the biggest coward I have ever met.” Julen stepped closer to him. His eyes filled with menace, and Horada caught her breath. Those eyes had clearly observed death and pain, had been made to watch things other young men of his age were lucky they never got to see. Her hand crept up to cover her mouth. Maybe she should not envy Julen so much after all.

Julen had always had a way of sliding beneath Orsin’s defences to annoy him, and Horada expected her eldest brother to react as he usually did, by exploding with anger, and for the confrontation to quickly turn physical.

Instead, however, Orsin just smiled, which unnerved her far more than anything else could have done.

“Say what you will, little brother.” He pointed at the pendant. “That will not last forever, and then when its magic runs out, Pyra will turn you to flame and reduce your skinny little frame to ash and bone.”

Julen hesitated, and Horada could see their brother’s answer had thrown him. Orsin did not look as if he were under some kind of spell, or as if the Incendi king were controlling him, as she had thought. His eyes were clear, and she had the sudden, horrible notion that all Pyra had done was appeal to the decadent side of Orsin’s nature that craved gluttonous pleasures. That was all it had taken.

Seeing Julen apparently lost for words, she moved forward to stand before them. “Orsin,” she whispered, “please, come with us. I cannot believe Pyra has promised you so much that you will betray us all.”

For the first time, he looked at her, his eyes travelling slowly as if he were reluctant to look at her. His gaze rested on her for a moment, and then dropped. “You should go,” he said, “before the magic wears off and Pyra awakes.”

“You cannot mean to stay.” Her throat tightened and tears pricked her eyes. “Please, Orsin. What would Father say if he knew what you have done? What is Mother going to say?”

His head lifted, and his expression turned to rage. “Father would not give a pig’s spit for what happens to me, and Mother does not care whether I live or die!”

“That is not true,” Horada protested, but he slashed his hand in the air as if he could cut off her words.

“It is true. She despises me. Father despised me – he thought me of little use as an heir and parcelled me off to someone as soon as I was old enough to sit on a horse.”

“Orsin!” She was openly sobbing now.

“Oh, Horada, grow up,” he said impatiently. “I am under no illusion that they didn’t both favour Julen – he is the golden boy, the acorn of Father’s eye. I came to terms with that years ago.”

“This very conversation proves you did not,” she snapped, dashing away her tears.

He glared at them both. “I am of no consequence to them or to anyone else in Anguis. I am worthless and have nothing to offer, according to the rest of the world.”

“That is not true,” said Julen at last, but Orsin ignored him.

“Our father may have been the key to helping the Arbor, but I do not have his strength or his goodness. I am like a copper ring tossed in the sea – tarnished with verdigris, unused, unwanted. But Pyra sees something within me that is useful to him. For once, I am needed, I am wanted. So tell me why I should turn my back on him.”

Horada stared at him, appalled. “Because it is
wrong.
”

“Horada!” Julen snapped, shocking her. “Do not be so damned naïve.” He turned back to Orsin. “Life is what we make it, brother, and we do not need others to tell us our usefulness. It might be true that our parents did not see much of worth in you. It might be true that you have not proved yourself indispensable to others. But it is
your
task to show us what your strengths are and to prove your worth – that task does not belong to others.”

Orsin studied him, his jaw working. For a brief moment, Horada thought they had reached him. But then his gaze slid to the beautiful dancing girls, to the flagons of ale and the rich pastries, and all emotion disappeared from his eyes.

“Go,” he said. “Before it is too late for you to leave.”

And he turned back to the chair, slumped down in it, picked up a goblet and drained its contents.

Julen stared at him for a moment. Then he turned and marched past Horada back to the doorway, catching her wrist and dragging her with him.

“Wait!” she screamed, resisting and stopping him. “We cannot leave him here!”

“He has made his choice,” Julen snapped. “What do you suggest we do, carry him out?”

“I do not know… the pendant…”

“Has done its work.” In the chamber, the scene flickered, the glittering dust fading. “We have to go,” he said to his sister, his grey eyes like steel. “Are you coming or do I have to put you over my shoulder? Because I will.”

She glanced back once more at Orsin, sitting on the chair, staring mutely at the dancing statues. The scene flickered again, the statues moving briefly. Orsin did not look over at her.

“No. Let us go.” Tears pouring down her face, she followed Julen out. As they ran down the corridor, behind them she heard Pyra bellow.

And she knew her hollowed heart would never be whole again.

II

They walked to Hicton, and there, at night, Demitto stole some horses, promising Tahir he would send money back for them once they arrived at Heartwood.