Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series) (54 page)

At long last they came to a lone door at the end of a corridor, deep into the Arkathedral. Farden looked around. A single torch had been left alive at the mouth of the hallway. It threw long shadows across their feet. Modren turned around and crossed his arms. ‘Well,’ he nodded to the door. ‘If you must.’

‘Somebody must.’

‘She won’t listen to you. In fact, she’ll probably rip you in two with that tongue of hers.’

‘If that’s what it takes, so be it.’

‘Last chance, Farden.’

‘Keep it for somebody else.’

‘Stubborn bastard,’ Modren sighed. He put his hand on the doorknob and twisted it. The door opened with a gentle creak and revealed a room even darker than the hallway, full of shadow and dark shapes. Farden pushed past Modren and into the room.

‘Elessi?’ he called.

Click
.

The mage was plunged into utter darkness. There was a creak as a spell spread across the door and sealed it tight. Farden hammered at it with his fists, but it felt like he was clobbering a stone wall, not wood. ‘Modren!’ he yelled. ‘MODREN!’

Farden felt his way around in the darkness for something solid. A flimsy crate, a bundle of cloth, a pole… a pole! Farden snatched at it. It felt sturdy enough, solid wood. He felt his way back to the door and began to jab at it as viciously as he could. It was hopeless. The pole lasted for three hits before the spell snapped it in two. Farden tossed the splintered halves into the darkness and began to hammer the door with his fists again. He was about as useful as the pole.

Something in Modren’s spell punched him, spun him around, and tossed him to the floor. There was a flash of light as his head hit the cold marble. Pain populated the darkness before his rolling eyes, filling it with faces and swirling teeth. Farden gasped, desperately dizzy. He could feel the ale swimming in his blood. His head pounded through its numbness. His stomach tightened. His body had given up.

‘Fine,’ he spat, bile rising, head wet with blood. ‘You win.’

Farden had just enough time to vomit before the unconsciousness swallowed him.

Modren rubbed his eyes with his fingers and trudged back up the hallway. The ale was creeping into him too, making his steps and eyelids heavy. He sighed, but it was a sigh of resentful satisfaction. The right thing had been done. No woman, especially Elessi, deserved to be told that their wedding was a sham, even if it was the truth. Elessi would have her wedding. He would make her his wife. Modren would make sure of that. He put his hands in his pockets and let out a low, troubled whistle.

Somebody whistled back at him. Modren turned to see a woman leaning up against a window, framed against the orange of the city. She was wrapped in a blanket and borrowed clothes, sandy-haired, the sort of figure a man’s eyes can’t help but wander over, no matter if his wedding was in the morning or not. It was the woman Farden had brought back with him. He had seen her earlier at the dreaded council meeting.

‘Shouldn’t you be in your chambers?’

‘Shouldn’t you?’

Modren approached her, holding out a hand. ‘Modren,’ he offered.

She didn’t take it at first. She just stared at him, or past him, Modren couldn’t tell in the dark. Damn this shortage of torches, he thought.

It was only when she reached out her own hand that he remembered she was blind. ‘Jeasin,’ she said. It was hard not to notice the familiar tinge of Albion in her accent. ‘I like how quiet it is here,’ she said.

Modren nodded, gazing out at the city. ‘Let’s hope it stays that way,’ he said.

‘After what I ‘eard today, in your council, chances are slim.’

‘Aren’t they just?’

Jeasin ran a hand through her hair. Modren squinted. He swore he recognised her from somewhere. ‘You seen Farden?’ she asked.

Modren looked back down the corridor. ‘Not a whisker,’ he lied.

The woman sniffed. ‘Figures. Still managed to ‘bandon me, even though he promised.’

‘Shall I walk you back to your room?’

‘Probably for the best, seein’ as I don’t know the way.’

She held out an arm, and stiffly let Modren guide her away. ‘You a mage like Farden?’ she asked, feeling the armour around his wrists.

Modren smiled. ‘Yes, but nobody’s like Farden,’ he muttered, and she nodded, as if that made the most perfect sense in the world.

“Krauslung was founded with blood and sea-water, and it will end in the same manner.”

Words from the scholar Lasti, who was scribe to the Arkmage Los

A
 hesitant morning. Mists rose from the sewer-grates and punch-holes in the gutters. Steam lingered around the maws of drainpipes. Windows had steamed in the dawn. People were yawning and stretching in their beds. The night had been long for some, shorter for others. Groups were still being carted off to the prisons for their riotous persuasions. Malvus’ allies, it seemed, were many, and already the preachers were dusting off their boxes and robes for another day ahead.

Beneath all of this, lost in the winding, forgotten tunnels of the sewer system, in the kingdom of sludge and rats, crouched a figure in the dark. Dead rat eyes swivelled. A sliver of grey tongue spoke, yet it did not move. Claws clutched and clasped with no muscles behind them.

‘Ssssssssswe feel it…’ said the voice of many, hissing from the chest of the dead rat. ‘The day is finally here.’

A nod from the figure, not a sound for concentration. A hot storm brewed in that sewer, in the heart of the girl. The steam rising from around her, rising up into the city above, was its proof. Its herald. She could barely contain her power.

‘Are you ready?’ wheezed the rat.

Silence but for the dripping.

‘Are you ready?’

A tight smile this time. ‘More than I’ll ever be.’

‘Then let the dead stars fall.’

Somebody else was smiling. Actually,
beaming
was probably more accurate. Elessi’s cheeks ached as she stared out from her window on the southern flank of the dew-clad Arkathedral.

The chambermaids pulled the last string tight on the corset and stood back to admire their work. Elessi glimpsed at the mirror. ‘How does it look?’ she asked, as though she didn’t trust her reflection.

‘Wonderful, miss,’ chorused the girls, an inch away from an eruption of giggling. Elessi turned to face the mirror and smoothed down the ruffles in the dress with her hands. It was a gold dress, as tradition stated, with white panels in the skirts for dancing. Beside her lay the long box in which it had been delivered. Underneath the wreckage of a torn paper ribbon was a note, written in green ink:

For Elessi, on your wedding day,

Durnus and Tyrfing.

Elessi smiled at herself once again. She had never imagined this day, and this dress, would ever come. Many a thousand long nights of wistful staring out of windows had led to this, and a thousand miles of travel too. She didn’t care that the bastard Farden had returned. She didn’t care for the riots, the turmoil below. They all paled. This was her wedding day. She would have it, if even for a few moments. She would have her mage.

There came a knock at the door, and one of the maids went to answer it. As soon as she opened it, she flinched and tried to shut it again, but an arm had already wedged itself between it and the frame. ‘It’s bad luck!’ cried the maid.

Elessi turned and saw the arm, wrapped in polished, mirror-like armour. ‘Modren! Don’t you dare! Go away,’ she cried, quickly retreating behind the door.

‘I don’t want to see you,’ he said, abruptly realising how bad that sounded. ‘I mean… I have a little gift that I thought you might want.’ Another hand came through the crack in the door, this time holding a tiny blue flower shaped like a bell in its fingers. ‘Springknell,’ he said, in as deep a voice as possible, a voice that wasn’t used to wrapping around the names of flowers. ‘Thought it might go well with your dress.’

Elessi rolled her eyes and blushed at her maids. ‘What are the guards going to think when they see their fearsome Undermage deliverin’ pretty little flowers to his wife-to-be?’

‘They’re none the wiser. I hid it under my cloak,’ laughed the voice behind the door.

‘Away with you!’ she ordered, smiling as one of her maids passed the flower to her. It fit neatly into the hem of her dress.

‘Until later,’ he said, and the door was swiftly shut.

Elessi went eagerly back to the mirror. The maids brought her a chair and then began to arrange and tame her curly locks. Elessi folded her hands on her lap. She would have her wedding.

Modren checked his armour one last time. Today he was a soldier made of mirrors and polished plates. Tyrfing had truly outdone himself with this suit. It had all the beauty and grace of ceremonial armour, but beneath its engraved curves and polish it had all the impenetrable strength of a granite cliff face. It veritably hummed with power and shield spells. Part of him silently prayed that today would only demand its ceremonial side.

Modren began his walk to Manesmark. There was a window open somewhere on that level, and it had let a breeze loose in the corridors. It was a brisk thing, and it felt good on his hands and neck and face. It ruffled his combed hair and toyed with his green-black cloak as he walked.

As he passed a brace of guards, they clacked their spears on the marble flagstones and saluted. ‘Undermage! Best of luck.’

Funny, how men offered luck, whilst women offered congratulations. Modren smiled and saluted them with a twirl of his hands. ‘I’ll need it,’ he chuckled, drily.
We’ll all need it.

There was a checklist in his head, and his thoughts were a quill, mentally scratching a dark line of ink through each task and chore. His armour was on. The flower had been delivered. Elessi was getting ready. The Winter Regiment was in place. The Evernia guard had been moved. The Arkathedral guard were busy locking down the fortress. The newly-formed Halfangar Regiments were in disguise and should be ready. The bellringers were stationed by their bells. The Written were arranging themselves around Krauslung’s gate and Manesmark. Tyrfing and Durnus were heading to the Spire.
Done, done, done
… the orders rattled off in his mind like slingstones in a cave.

As Modren descended some steps, he came across a long corridor peeling off to his right. The single torch still stubbornly burnt near its mouth, sooting the pale ceiling with its funeral flames. Modren took a step forward and angled his ear. Silence. Only the torch dared its noise. The Undermage eyed the lone door at the corridor’s end. It was still stuck fast and solid. The way he had cast it, the spell would hold for several days. The wedding would be over by then. Farden would be livid, but so be it. Modren shrugged. There were many things more important than Farden’s feelings. They could do without him.

Modren walked on, a small spark of anticipation growing in his stomach. Was it excitement? Was he nervous? Was it worry, mutating into fear? He knew little of any of those, but it was something. He quickened his pace, steel-clad boots making music on the stone.