The Written (44 page)

Soon he came to another thick
iron door. At some point in the past someone had painted it a dull
blood red, but the colour had long-since flaked away and left the
metal brown and rust-coloured. Farden kicked at the door and it
swung open, startling a young guard standing on the other side.

‘State your business!’ he
demanded and the mage found a shaky spearpoint waving in his face.
Farden held up both of his hands. ‘I’m here to see the Arkmage,’ he
said.

The young man shook his head
resolutely. ‘Nobody’s to go in there, Lord Vice’s orders, under
pain of death!’

Farden’s patience was growing
dangerously thin. ‘I don’t have ti...’

‘I’m sorry sir, but you’ll have
to leave!’ The spearpoint got closer as the man took a careful step
forward.

Farden he grabbed the spear
shaft and swiftly broke it in two. He pushed the shocked guard
backwards until his armour collided with the wall and then he sent
him sprawling on the floor with a deft kick. Dazed the young guard
cowered on the floor fearfully.

Farden grabbed him by the
collar of his breastplate. ‘I said I don’t have time for this! Now
where’s Helyard?’ he bellowed, every word making the man jump a
little more. The guard pointed a shaky hand to the dark corridor
leading off from the little room. ‘Down th... there sir!’

‘Good man,’ muttered Farden. He
lifted up a clenched fist and a light spell burned the shadows away
and half-blinded the young guard. Anger bubbled inside of him, and
even though he had no idea quite what he was about to do somehow he
was starting to sense that vengeance and answers were close at
hand. Farden tried to calm his breathing. The magick ran like
boiling water though his veins. He thought only of Cheska.

Farden found the cell door and
gritted his teeth, spreading his palm over the cold steel and oak
and letting his fingers creep over the metal. The symbols on his
wrist burned white like fire under his vambraces. The mage had no
time for subtlety. He could feel the magick pulse through his
forearm but he held firm and pushed with all his strength at the
door, making the iron buckle and writhe under his hand. The door
rippled and shook again with a terrible wrenching sound. Farden
clenched his jaw even harder and pushed with every ounce of his
strength. Sweat dripped from his forehead.

Suddenly there was a crunch and
a metallic squeal and splinters exploded from under the metal
brackets. Farden didn’t even blink. With another shove the door
buckled and flew open in a cloud of white dust. The mage didn’t
waste a second. He burst through the haze and stormed into the
room, fists clenched and fire trailing around his wrists. His heart
pounded and his eyes eagerly roved around the room.

Then the smell hit him, that
sickly rotting smell that nobody could ever forget once they had
experienced it. Farden saw the body on the floor surrounded by a
dark sticky pool of blood and his heart fell in his chest like a
cold rock in the colder sea. The mage walked forward slowly and
knelt by the corpse’s side. It was Helyard. The old man’s head was
twisted at a ridiculous angle and his body lay in an awkward
position. A long knife was buried hilt-deep in his chest. The
Arkmage’s face was ashen and grey, his eyes were misted over and
glazed in death and a horrified expression was frozen on his face.
He looked shocked, pained, and Farden stared into his glazed eyes.
He wondered what he had seen or what he had been thinking, who he
had faced. The mage gingerly lifted Helyard’s chin and moved his
head slightly, trying to restore some sense of decorum to the old
man’s posture and with a gentle hand he closed his eyes for the
final time. A renewed sense of loss washed over Farden like a
bucket of ice water. He sighed and looked around at the room,
looking at the pockmarks in the walls and the splintered remains of
what looked like a cot. The floor was cracked and blistered, like
the armour of the unfortunate guards at the Spire. Without a sound
Farden stood up and walked out, leaving Helyard in peace. He
thought only of Cheska.

“
I am not
becoming someone different, I am simply getting to know the person
I already am...”

Old saying, origin unknown

For once the
Bearded Goat
was quiet and still. A few people were
scattered around the bar, not bothering anyone except themselves,
sipping ale and drowning their thoughts as though there were not
going to be a tomorrow. Even the sound of the inn’s creaky sign
swinging in the breeze outside was louder than the muffled sound of
conversation. The fire crackled quietly by the mage’s side. Someone
coughed.

Farden swilled the warm wine
around his mouth. After leaving Helyard’s cell he had gone straight
to find Vice but the Undermage was nowhere to be found, his rooms
had been empty and his servants clueless. He had gone to tell the
Arkmage and the council but Åddren had merely slumped deeper into
his throne and gone silent, staring blankly into space without any
words of wisdom or comfort to offer the mage. Nothing. Farden had
been furious.

And, to make matters worse,
talk of his daughter’s death had reached Bane the King of Skölgard
and he had sent a dozen hawks with news of his imminent arrival to
Krauslung. The King wanted an explanation as to why his only
daughter and heir to the throne had died whilst in the care of the
Arka. Bane had demanded retribution for Cheska and had threatened
war on the magick council. They now only had mere days before Bane
and his army arrived.

The mage couldn’t help but
think that somehow it all rested on his shoulders. He should have
been in Albion with the army but he needed time to think. Farden
took a thoughtful bite of a lonely piece of bread that sat on his
plate. A mixture of anger and grief momentarily flushed through him
and he shuddered. Farden tore at the bread with his teeth and sent
a shower of crumbs across the table. He narrowed his eyes and tried
to think, tried to figure out this mess once and for all.

That evening the city was
filled with lights. As night fell the stars battled with the thick
cloud for a place in the darkening skies. Torches crept into the
streets and candles appeared in windows. One by one people left
their houses carrying candles in glass jars, or tall blazing
torches, or little whale oil lamps for the children. The countless
lights made their way south towards the sea, wandering through the
winding streets of the city like fireflies. They mingled and they
gathered, their bearers silent and sombre, and all together they
quietly proceeded down towards the shore. An Arkmage had died.

Slowly the lights assembled by
the sea and lined the rocky beaches. As the people gathered they
did so in complete silence and let other sounds fill the
wordlessness. Innumerable shoes crunched on the sand and shingle. A
myriad of candles, lamps, and torches sparked and hissed in the
cold night breeze. The water lapped gently at the shore and rocked
the ships in the port, making their bells shake and toll quietly
with low clanging moans.

After an hour the entire city
had gathered at the water’s edge and every single one of them was
deathly quiet. The People stood in their thousands anywhere they
could find the space to do so. They crowded on the dark shoreline
and filled the empty jetties and walkways. Peasants and shopkeepers
rubbed shoulders with aristocrats and fine ladies stood with
battle-scarred soldiers. Sailors stood at the railings of their
ships. Even in their thousands nobody made even the faintest sound.
The silence, broken only by the gentle swish of the waves and the
quiet tolling of the bells, ached.

Åddren stood alone on a rock
near the front of the crowds and looked out over the calm waves
that rippled across the bay of Rós and out towards the Bern sea.
The dark waters seemed glasslike, mottled like obsidian, and every
now and again the frothy tip of a wave caught the bright torchlight
and shone orange. He let a slow sad sigh escape from his pursed
lips. The night breeze made him shiver.

At that moment a lone horn rang
out from somewhere in the port and nine small boats emerged from
the mouth of the harbour walls. Another horn cried then, a long
high-pitched wail that floated across the cold air. Everyone just
watched and waited.

The boats bobbed leisurely on
the waves and thudded against each other with dull knocking sounds.
Another smaller boat, a skiff, made its way out to them. There was
a man leaning far out from the bow holding a long pole with rags
wrapped around the end of it. Slowly, and with a great deal of
reverence and ceremony, the man lit the pole with flint and tinder
and touched each boat with the crackling flames. One by one the
boats, their sad cargoes liberally doused with a special oil, burst
into flame. The man in the skiff pushed the vessels out to sea and
let the waves do the rest.

The thousands gathered on the
beaches and ships bowed their heads and slowly, saying their wishes
and prayers to their gods, snuffed out their torches and candles.
The beaches were gradually plunged into darkness until the only
lights were those of the nine burning boats drifting towards the
dark horizon and the islands of Skap.

Far away on the Manesmark
hillside a hooded figure sat watching the ceremony with his arms
resting on knees and as silent as the surrounding grass. Farden’s
keen eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness, and now he
stared raptly at the tiny twinkling lights in the distance. He let
the breeze tug at his hood, breathing slowly and listening to his
mind wander through dark thoughts.

Farden twiddled something
between his fingers absentmindedly. It was Cheska’s fjortla. He had
toyed with it for hours but the red metal was still cold to the
touch. The fact that she could have died during the Ritual and not
in the fire was no comfort. He looked at it a hundred different
ways but the outcome was always the same: Cheska was gone.

The night was cold but the mage
was already numb and felt as lost as ever. More than once he had
contemplated throwing himself onto the rocks below the hill but he
knew the fall wouldn’t have taken his problems away. Farden shook
his head and his morbid thoughts were interrupted once again by
that annoying sense of duty that seemed to incessantly poke at him.
Maybe it was responsibility or maybe it was a craving for revenge,
he didn’t know, but something was definitely trying to keep him
going and stoking the angry fires deep in his heart. But at the
same time an overwhelming desire to give up and wallow in grief
tugged at him from the opposite direction, and he was caught in the
middle of both feelings, undecided and confused. The conviction
with which he had fought everything up to this point was slowly
dimming and getting lost amidst the stress and the pain. Farden was
tired. As the very last of the lights disappeared on the horizon in
the darkness of the bay he got to his feet with a grunt and strode
off into the darkness.

The walk back into the city
only took a few hours, and as Farden walked past the huge city
gates it started to snow. The flakes were few and lazy at first,
gently drifting down from the black sky, but Farden could feel that
a blizzard was fast approaching. As he descended into the streets
of Krauslung he looked up at the dark clouds between the buildings.
In the orange light of the torches the snowflakes looked like grey
flies floating on the growing breeze, swarming around the windows
and rooftops. Farden pulled his cloak about him and coughed,
watching the hot breath escape from his lips as steam. The cold was
doing wonders for his arrow wound.

The city was quiet again. Now
that the funeral was over the citizens had gone back to their homes
and had locked their doors for the night. Snow quickly covered the
streets and blushed orange and yellow in the torchlight and made
the alleyways and buildings glow oddly. Farden could barely see ten
yards in front of him but he could make out a few people wandering
through the cold streets ahead of him. The figures looked odd and
misshapen through the thick snow. They passed without a sound, like
him their hoods pulled low and hands deep in their pockets. They
made a strange sight, with their heads and shoulders covered in a
thick layer of white snow, huffing and puffing steam like a chimney
as they hurried home. Somewhere to the left a mother shushed a
whining child. There was a sudden peal of boyish laughter and two
more children wrapped in a dozen scarves bounded through the
whiteness. A few seconds later another fatter child raced after
them, carrying two sizeable lumps of snow in each chubby hand.
Farden shook his head with a hint of a smile, even though the
expression felt strangely foreign in his current mood. They were so
oblivious to their surroundings, so innocent and carefree. The mage
felt a little pang of jealousy and wished he could go running into
the snow and forget everything.

Soon he came to a familiar
corner and heard the muffled squeak of a familiar sign. Farden
sighed with relief: all he wanted to do was sleep. The mage made
his way to the brightly lit doorway and stamped his feet hard on
the steps to shake off the snow. The
Bearded
Goat
was quiet once again, subdued and half-empty. Thick
tobacco smoke filled the air. Farden wandered in and nodded to the
innkeeper, who went to pour him another glass of the sweet red wine
he was starting to like. It wasn’t like him to be so habitual but
it was the only thing that seemed to keep him from thinking too
much. Melting snow from his leather boots dripped onto the floor
and made little puddles. With a sigh he cast a few looks around the
place. A few men leaned against the end of the bar, swapping words
in low murmurs and nods. Farden watched them for a moment, trying
to listen, but he soon gave up. Another man, a soldier by the look
of him, sipped ale by the hearth. His eyes were glazed in deep
thought and he absently swirled his ale in his glass.