Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series) (2 page)

Modren was a shade of red so dark it bordered on brown, as if every pint of blood he held in him had suddenly rushed to his cheeks. His knuckles, now shed of their polished steel, popped and clicked as he clenched them. The Undermage could have turned pebbles to sand in those fists. There was a cold sweat on his brow. His eyes were as red as his face, and were busy boring a hole into Malvus. He began to walk towards him, slowly at first, burning with murderous intent. He probably would have satisfied that intent, too, had it not been for Farden.

Just as Malvus was turning ashen with well-deserved fear, Farden took a step forward and swung a fist. It caught him on the chin, a lucky shot for a tired mage, and the Council’s eyes rolled up into his head. He sagged like a melting candle, right into the arms of his cronies. They began to shout and yell for the guards, cawing like skewered gulls.

‘Outrage!’ they yelled.

‘Council Malvus has been attacked!’

‘Guards! A Written has gone mad!’

‘Assault!’

It may not have been Farden’s wisest decision, but it had done its job. Modren stopped dead in his tracks, fists poised in mid-air, crackling with flame, now utterly purposeless. He could only bare his teeth at the unconscious Malvus and the yelling councillors, shaking with rage.

Farden bent down. Malvus was already coming around. It hadn’t been a hard punch after all. He blinked like a startled owl, a little blood gathering at the corner of his mouth. He recoiled when he found Farden’s face so close to his own. ‘Think I just saved your life, Barkhart. So, if I were you, I would leave before my good friend here decides to try again.’

For the first time in a very long time, Malvus was speechless. As were his men. They may have been a bold bunch when it came to politics, but when faced with three angry Written, a furious Durnus, and a slim hallway bereft of witnesses, they quailed.

With a nod from Malvus, he was hauled upright. He made a show of brushing imaginary dust from his clothes and cleared his throat again, trying to recover some dignity. He would have had better luck trying to squeeze it from the marble.

‘If I see any of you again before the sun sets, I’ll show you what a mad Written looks like. In fine bloody detail too!’ Modren shouted after them as they swiftly retreated.

‘They’re gone,’ said Tyrfing.

‘Probably for the best,’ grunted Modren. He nodded to Farden.

Farden returned the gesture. Behind him, Tyrfing scuffed his boot along the floor. ‘It does take an age to get blood out of this marble.’

‘How is she?’ Farden asked the burning question.

Modren swallowed something hard. ‘They… they don’t know,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s barely breathing. She’s ice cold to the touch, as if she were already two days dead, but somehow she’s still alive. They tell me that much, at least.’

The others bowed their heads.

‘Can they do something about the poison?’ Farden asked. ‘Is there an antidote, or something?’

‘The healers have never even seen a daemon, never mind its poison. They’re stumped. Utterly clueless.’ Fists clenched like punctuation to his words. The blood had fallen from his face. Underneath the dirt and sweat that clung to him, Modren was now white-pale, almost grey.

‘Can we see her?’ Durnus asked, and Modren nodded, waving a hand towards the door.

In silent single file, the others went to the door, gently turned the knob, and went in. The smell of the room, a square and simple affair with a single bed, was one of bitter chemicals and vinegar, of the clinging, dusty odour of cotton and blankets. That iron tang of blood, the salt of sweat. The scent of frustration. Elessi lay on the narrow, iron-barred bed, surrounded by healers and their servants. She was wrapped in blankets, almost as if she were already being prepared for the pyre.

Durnus and Farden parted the crowd of healers and knelt down by her bedside. Modren was right; she was as cold as winter, and grey as it too. There was not a pinch of blood in her cheeks, not a single flutter in her eyelids. To the casual eye, she looked dead, but somehow she was alive. Squinting, leaning close, they could see that her chest, still wrapped in the golden bodice of her wedding dress, rose and fell in tiny amounts, powering whatever shallow breaths she clung to. The ugly purple wound on her neck and collarbone bled slightly, another sign that her heart still pumped. Durnus laid a hand on her ribs and tried to feel it beating. It took all his concentration to sense its feeble fluttering.

Modren had entered the room. He stood behind them all. Eyes wide and fixed on his wife.

‘She lives,’ said Durnus.

‘Though we don’t know how,’ sighed one of the healers, a middle-aged man as tall and as thin as a willow. There was a spot of blood on his cheek, half-dried and cracking.

‘Can’t you give her something? It’s what you do isn’t it? Heal people?’ Farden eyed him.

The healer stared right back. ‘Not a single potion or spell that we know of has worked on her, mage. This poor woman is at death’s door and we have no idea how to bring her round.’ He sighed. ‘It’s hopeless, sirs.’

Farden made a move for the man, hands ready to throttle a solution out of him. ‘I’ll give you hopeless,’ he hissed, but Tyrfing grabbed his nephew by the collar and dragged him back to sense.

‘I tried that,’ muttered Modren, gesturing to the healer’s colleague, a shorter, younger man standing nearby. He nervously twiddled with a vinegar-soaked bandage. The beginnings of a glorious black eye blossomed above his cheek. ‘They’ve done their best, Farden.’ The pain in Modren’s voice was palpable.

In silence, he and the others left the healers to watch over Elessi. When the door was closed, Modren went to the window, while Farden and the others stood in a circle. It was a while before anyone else spoke.

‘So what’s the plan?’ This from Farden.

Tyrfing shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as ours, nephew.’

Farden crossed his arms. ‘But there’s always a plan.’

‘And perhaps that is why we are in a dire situation, yet again. What is the old saying? The best laid plans…?’ Durnus trailed off.

Tyrfing finished for him. ‘We’ve never faced foes like this before, nor on so many fronts. Daemons, daughters, politics, they’re all clamouring at the door.’

‘I can’t believe what I’m hearing. The very best of the Arka, lost and clueless?’ Farden sounded as though he were about to laugh.

‘What would you have us do, Farden?’ Modren spoke into the smudged glass of the window, as if he were speaking to the city, not the mage. He eyed the black smoke in the north. ‘Krauslung’s rising up against us. Malvus has called for the Arkmages to step down. The daemons have vanished to gods know where. Your daughter is still free, ready to attack again at any moment, and Elessi, my new wife, is inches from death.’ It was hard for Modren to hide the hopelessness in his voice, but it was a hopeless moment, and the others let him have it. It was painful to hear a man of his strength admit such truths, and all the more painful that they were truths, not lies. He turned around to face Farden. It looked as though a tear was hovering on his cheek. Perhaps it was the light catching a fleck of broken glass. Nobody dared look too closely. Modren shook his head. ‘What possible solution have you got for all of that, hmm? Because fuck me, I’d like to hear it.’

Farden crossed his arms and stared right past Modren, at the mountains. ‘Me,’ he replied. There was a sliver of defiant confidence in that response that jolted the others like a spark. This scrawny Farden suddenly looked like another Farden altogether, one they’d lost a long time ago.

‘You?’ Modren couldn’t help but snort.

Farden frowned. ‘Would you have said that fifteen ?’

‘Fifteen years is a long time.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You know exactly what I mean, Farden.’

‘Well, pardon me for being the only one here with a solution.’

‘
You
aren’t a solution, Farden. You’re the bloody opposite.’

‘Am I now?’

‘Modren…’ Tyrfing warned.

‘No, no, let him carry on, Uncle. I know what he’s going to say.’

Modren let his angry words loose like snarling dogs. Every accusation was a sharp prod of a finger in Farden’s chest. Farden took it all without flinching. ‘
You
are the reason that bitch of an abomination exists.
You
are the reason she attacked today.
You
are the reason those daemons fell from the sky, and
you
are the reason that Elessi, my
wife
, is lying in that bed right now! You’re the poisonous root of all that’s happened here today! You’re a fuck-up, not a knight in shining armour. You’re… you’re nothing but a
curse
, Farden! You hear me?!’

For a long moment, nobody spoke. Modren’s finger remained firmly entrenched in Farden’s chest. The two mages simply stared at each other, almost nose to nose, while Tyrfing and Durnus waited, holding their breath. They all expected Farden to explode like a raging volcano, or at the very least storm off down the hallway.

He was full of surprises today.

‘Are you finished?’ he asked, after a time. There was an annoyingly confident shine to his face. Only Farden knew where it stemmed from; that unwavering, unflinching clarity… Modren wanted to slap it off.

‘Yes,’ spat the Undermage.

‘Good,’ began Farden. ‘You’re right. This is all my fault.’ He spared a moment to look at Tyrfing and Durnus, whose expressions were nothing short of bewildered. That alone made him surge on. He turned back to face Modren, and pushed his jabbing finger off of his chest. ‘But you’re also wrong, and for one astoundingly simple reason. I can fix this, and even better, I will.’

‘How?’ asked Durnus.

Farden crossed his arms. Proving them wrong was almost as gratifying as proving them right.
Unflinching clarity.
‘First off, Elessi needs saving. If those useless healers in there are out of options, then I vote we go somewhere better, somewhere with healers that managed to fix me when I was banging on death’s door, half-dead from a shipwreck. Healers who have access to a lot more ancient lore than we could ever dream of.’

‘The Sirens?’

‘The Sirens.’

‘We haven’t heard from them in months.’

‘Then we’ll go to them.’ The others looked unconvinced. Farden ploughed on. ‘Unless of course you want to consult the Arfell scholars, and have them spend the next three months trawling through their libraries?’

Durnus nodded. It made sense. ‘Fine. What about the daemons?’

Farden clanged his wrists together, grinning. ‘They wouldn’t come near me once they saw I was wearing this armour. You all saw it happen. I challenged him and he slunk off. It must be the Nine. We find the rest of this armour, and we’ve got ourselves a deterrent. Or a weapon. Or both.’

Modren couldn’t help but laugh. ‘That simple, is it?’

‘Godblood,’ Farden retorted.

‘Godwhat?’

‘Godblood,’ repeated Farden. ‘It’s what that daemon whispered before he disappeared.’

‘And what is it supposed to mean?’ asked Tyrfing. ‘Besides the obvious?’

Farden shrugged. ‘How am I to know? But what I do know is that we happen to have two gods in this very Arkathedral who just might. I say we ask them.’

Tyrfing held up his hands. ‘Say you do all this. Say the Sirens can save Elessi and you can fight the daemons. What about your daughter? And the rest of the daemons? I would bet my Book that Ragnarök was never just three daemons. There will be more soon. And lots of them too. More importantly, Farden, what about you? How are you, in your current state, going to fight them all off?’

Farden turned to face his uncle. He smiled wryly. ‘I guess we’ll have to see, won’t we? After, all, I didn’t say I’d fix this alone, did I?’

The others shook their heads.

‘So?’

Durnus shrugged. ‘Well, it’s rough. And simple. And I have no idea how you’re going to pull it off, but there we have it.’

‘Sounds a shite plan to me.’ This from Modren.

Farden stared at each of them in turn. ‘Anybody got any better ideas?’

Tyrfing sighed. ‘No.’ He found it odd that it was so difficult to admit that. He should have been practically prancing with joy at Farden attempting to take the reins, but instead, he couldn’t help but doubt him and his perforated plan. He felt a trickle of guilt run through him. He looked at the floor.

‘Be sure to let me know when they pop into your head,’ Farden replied, almost sensing his uncle’s doubt. He looked to Modren. ‘And you? She’s your wife. Nelska could save her.’

Modren looked back at the door, and thought of his wife on the narrow bed, as grey as stone and as cold as a winter morning. He thought of the healers bumbling around her, mopping up sweat and blood. Useless.

When he finally spoke, his voice was small and cracking at the edges. He prodded Farden once more in the chest, but this time there was no anger behind it. ‘You bring her back to me, Farden. I don’t care how, just bring her back,’ he said, small, and cracked.

Farden met Modren’s eyes, and the look they shared was as hard and as binding as steel. He didn’t reply, he simply nodded.

‘Well,’ said Durnus. ‘If you are intent on going to Nelska, I suppose you will need a ship.’

Farden turned so fast his neck almost snapped. ‘A
what
?’