Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series) (28 page)

Below the Nest, the great hall pointed directly east. It and its adjacent rooms stretched almost to the precipice of the Arkathedral. There the thick battlements clung on for dear life as the walls fell away like a waterfall of white marble, plummeting to the cobbles a thousand feet below. Two skinny white towers teetered at the very edge. They were almost as tall as the Nest. They held the twin bells, aptly named Hardja and Ursufel, that rang every dawn and every sunset.

It was the Nest itself that Tyrfing found he couldn’t tear his eyes away from.

Open to the sky, it was essentially a varnished oak platform, diamond in shape. But it was what stood around and over it that robbed a man’s breath. At each point of its compass, a milk-white marble tree sprouted from the oiled oak and curled into the sky above it. Polished so that they seemed almost liquid in texture, each tree bowed to its opposite and joined together over the centre of the platform, branches forming a knot of carved marble, willows grappling over an oak river. The marble looked pure white at a distance, but up close the tiniest capillaries of grey and blue mica could be seen under their skins. In the early sun, they threw strange shadows on the oak at the Arkmages’ feet, shadows that seemed to sway with the breeze despite the stone they were carved from. It was pure mastery. Art, imitating wood.

‘I wish you could see this,’ whispered Tyrfing, awed, a breath from speechless.

Durnus shrugged and smiled. ‘I wish that I could too, old friend.’ He was listening to the whispering of the nearby craftsmen. The wooden spars and tangled ropes of the cranes were slowly being ushered below. One of them, a foreman by the look of his spotless blue coat, came to bow.

‘All finished, your Mages. I trust you’re pleased?’ he asked.

‘Judging that Arkmage Tyrfing is lost for words, I would say we are, Stonemaster Ret. We finally have an Arkathedral.’

Ret grinned, tipped his cap, and bowed again. He turned to his crew of craftsmen and builders. ‘You hear that, boys? You’ve done a fine job,’ he announced, and the dusty men smiled proudly. Ret turned back and a serious, slightly concerned look came over his face. ‘There was one thing, your Mages, that I wanted to ask you.’

‘And what is that?’

‘The, er,
beast
, sir. Now that we’ve finished, will he be returning soon? The only reason I ask is that last time he nearly frightened several of the younger men into jumping from the roof.’

Tyrfing looked up at the clear morning sky. ‘I’ll make sure he waits until you’ve finished.’

Master Ret blew a great sigh of relief. ‘Oh, thank you, sir. And again, you’ve got me and my crew’s word that we’ll keep quiet about him,’ he said.

‘Glad to hear it,’ Tyrfing said. He beckoned the foreman closer as he reached inside the pocket of his robe. He withdrew a cloth purse, fat with coins. It clinked as he pushed it into Ret’s hand. ‘For you and your men,’ whispered the Arkmage. The craftsmen had already been paid, of course, but it didn’t hurt to give them a little something for the taverns. ‘Make sure it’s used appropriately.’

Ret grinned knowingly. ‘Thank you, sirs. I’ll make sure it is.’ The man bowed one final time and quickly rejoined his dusty and weary band. There was a moment of hushed conferring, and then a chorus of cheers. They turned, swept off their caps, and then bowed to their masters.

‘An honour, your Mages!’

‘Thank you sirs!’

‘Much obliged!’ came the shouts.

Ret thrashed about with his cap. ‘Alright you lot, back to work! That’s enough!’

When they had gone back to their tidying, Durnus sighed. ‘Be careful that Malvus and his cronies do not hear of that little expense. That purse was heavier than we had discussed.’

Tyrfing tapped his nose. ‘And luckily for us, most of it came from Ilios’ own hoard.’

‘Well then, all’s well,’ Durnus replied. He twitched then, and sniffed the breeze. ‘Do you feel that?’

Tyrfing slid the sleeve of his robe up his forearm. Even though the fingers of time and age had faded some of his self-inflicted scars, the deeper ones still remained, purple and silvery twine embedded in his leathered skin. But in the middle of them all, as stark as the day the whalebone needle had first kissed him, was the key tattoo of his Book. And it was glowing ever so softly. ‘That was quick,’ he said.

‘Let us not keep them waiting.’

Tyrfing led Durnus back down the marble steps and into the tower. With every step, his tattoos grew brighter. They could feel it growing in the air too, the magick, the thick, hot touch of it, stirring and simmering as though the blood in their veins was coming to the boil. Durnus and Tyrfing let their own magick swirl and mingle with it as they walked, unfurling like wings behind them. Any normal person, unfortunate enough to be walking alongside them, might have felt the pressure of the air drop, maybe even felt their ears pop or their chest tighten, the flash of a headache maybe but they would be clueless as to why. The Arkmages, and the Written gathering in the hall, could taste it, smell it, hear it, wave their hands through it, even imagine it tumbling through the air like an unravelling rainbow, alight with fire. It was intoxicating. Dangerous. Such was how they had grown in the last ten years.

Tyrfing pushed open the door to the great hall and drank it in. His tattoos were now glowing white-hot. Durnus let go of his arm and found his way to his throne without the tiniest moment of hesitation or the slightest hint of a stumble. It was almost as though the magick gave him another kind of sight, one that Tyrfing could only pretend to understand. He took to the steps of his own his throne. Once they were seated, they looked out over the pitifully small group that stood in perfect lines before them. The Written. The last of their kind.

Twenty-six
, counted Tyrfing. That number made his heart heavy. The Written had once numbered well over a hundred. Vice’s cruel battle had slashed their numbers by half. Nobody was more painfully aware of that than Modren and Tyrfing, for they had been responsible for a good number of Written corpses that day. Corpses of traitors, mind. Farden’s spawn had culled the rest. Twenty-four bodies had been counted so far, over the years. Their numbers had been halved again, and mercilessly too. A dying breed, and no Scribe to save them. Such was Vice’s legacy.

But the men and women arrayed in formation in front of them didn’t look defeated, nor worried by their dwindling numbers. Every single one had their hands folded calmly behind their back, and each one wore a tiny smile on their face. Tyrfing had once worn a smile like it. As had Farden. It was a smile that smacked of confidence and power. A smirk of the elite. The Arkmage looked at each of the mages and recited their names in his head. Modren’s earlier words echoed in his head and he found himself smiling back at them. He would rather have twenty-six of those smiles, he thought, and know what caused them, than twenty-thousand men without.

Durnus waved them forward, and one by one the Written fell out of formation and gathered at the foot of the twin thrones.
How did he know?
wondered Tyrfing. He looked down at them as they sauntered forward. Some of them wore gleaming suits of his newly designed armour. Some had been given Scalussen pieces. Some were still waiting patiently for theirs. Some were old, with scars on their faces, while some were young, some of the last to taste the Scribe’s needle. All of them were silent and calm. Their magick screamed loudly enough for all of them.

‘Modren,’ Durnus called to the Undermage, who was standing at the back of the hall. Elessi was there, standing beside him. Tyrfing couldn’t help but notice the frown on her face. ‘Seal the doors!’ ordered Durnus.

Modren nodded and gently moved Elessi aside. She went to sit on a bench by a window, arms crossed and face ashen, rubbing her head as if in pain. Modren wiped his hand across the gilded doors, first the left, and then the right, and two resounding thuds echoed through the hall.

‘Written!’ announced Durnus. The Written watched him expectantly. ‘It is time for you to hear why you have been training so hard,’ he began.

One of the younger mages put her hand up. ‘Is this about the murders, your Mage?’

Durnus nodded. His face was grave. ‘My dear, the murders are just the beginning…’

There was a cairn at the very peak of Hardja. The little cone of jagged pebbles was a miracle of balance. It had survived a hundred storms, tasted a hundred caps of snow, felt a hundred different faces of the wind, and was now being stared at by a god. A tiny slab of rock sat at its foot. The ice and wind and rain had stolen the words that had once been carved into it, a forgotten time ago.

Heimdall shifted his feet. His boots crunched on the snow that still stubbornly clung to the peak. An inch from his foot, the rock fell away into a sheer, ice-clad cliff, meeting the walls of the Arkathedral far below. If the god was worried by the stomach-churning drop, he didn’t show it. His boots were firmly wedged in a snowy nook. One hand firmly grasped the side of the cairn, while the other shaded his tawny eyes against the morning sun, teetering on top of the opposite peak. He was watching two figures standing on top of the Arkathedral, one being led by another, standing under a set of marble trees.

Heimdall turned his face to the distant west. There came a whistling sound from behind him, and the grating of claws on loose rocks and ice. A lion’s tail flicked at the brisk morning air.

Heimdall shook his head to the gryphon’s question. ‘I cannot see him… wait…’

Another whistle, more urgent.

‘Wait. Yes, now I can…’

Ilios could hear the dark concern in the god’s voice. He crept forward a little more, and put his beak on the god’s shoulder. A pair of piercing golden eyes joined Heimdall’s tawny pair. ‘I see death on him. He is not moving.’

Ilios clacked his beak a few times. His claws clutched at the rocks, concerned.

‘Maybe. It is down to Loki now.’

The gryphon sighed, a musical little hiss.

Heimdall shook his head, and stared down at the stubborn snow that was attempting to swallow his boot. ‘We will see,’ he said. ‘And hope.’

Ilios hummed a sad tune through his closed beak. His feathers shivered in the breeze.

‘No, we cannot tell Tyrfing. We keep this between ourselves, until we know. Understand?’

The gryphon clacked his beak once, and only once.

“Old Åddren’s dying wish cursed us all. Cursed this city. Cursed it with a murdering madman and a blind old fool. How dare such as they sit on the thrones and bear the Weights. A Written? Such a thing has never been allowed, and for good reason. And Durnus, the blind old crone. Where did he come from? Who had heard of him, before the Battle? It is too suspicious. They are unfit to rule, I say. They will see our proud country go to the dogs! Something must be done…”

An entry stolen from the diary of Council member Malvus Barkhart, dated Spring of the year 905

T
he light was slippery, a nest of eels. Their tails poked through the curtained window, stabbing him every time he cracked an eye. Sound drifted around him like treacle. Time was dust in his mouth. Voices were ancient echoes in his ears, drifting by on a lazy wind from a forgotten land. They were not real. They were not for him any more.

Why isn’t he waking up?

Hand me the cloth!

Who did this to him?

Do something!

It’s up to time now.

Time, the cruellest of mistresses. Time did nothing but wound.

Farden had been in this place before; this cold, dark, and faceless land hemmed by black mountains. He remembered a ship, a half-drowned cat, and a shingled beach that stabbed him like a spear. He remembered a tree and rope. A crow. A shadow. Memories? pondered the mage, dazedly, in a voice that echoed around him in the void, thrown back by the dark mountains that bordered his consciousness. No, not memories. Dreams. Mere dreams to be drowned by a deeper sleep. The mage felt the cold breeze of his void wash around him. He felt sand in between his naked toes, and closed his eyes. He was ready to let go.

Dead men don’t dream
.

The sand became wet velvet between his toes, icy cold. Farden opened his eyes and found himself by a ribbon of fast flowing river. It was blue. Lanky shadows pushed him forward from behind, bodies half-realised in translucent flesh. They shoved and pressed against him, but the mage stood his ground, and pushed back with his own shadowy arms. Some shouted for him to move. Some jostled past to slosh through by themselves, but the water took them and swallowed them like a leviathan gorging on an overturned ship.

And only the dead belong here
.

Farden twitched, feeling the spray as the river swallowed another. This was no dream. This was a thin stab at reality, the precipice before the void. Farden took a step into the icy water, and felt the pebbles grate against the faint skin of his feet.

‘Back!’ boomed a voice. Farden looked upstream and saw a ship surging towards them. The ship was long and narrow, sporting tall, gaunt masts that scraped at the mists of Farden’s dream, sail-less and empty.