Queen of Fire

“They came from the west in the summer months,” Astorek said. “So many years ago the stars have changed their course since. A tall people speaking in meaningless babble but bringing gifts of great value, blades of iron stronger and sharper than any we could smelt, and wondrous devices of glass to cast sight over great distances. We called them the Great Boat People.”

He pointed to three figures depicted next to the ship, two men and a woman. The woman was of arresting beauty, dark-haired with green eyes, wearing a long white robe and a golden amulet around her neck: a half-moon adorned with a red stone. The man on her left wore a blue robe and was slight of build, his face handsome but narrow and seemed to be wearing a half smile on his lips. But it was the man on the woman’s right who captured Vaelin’s attention, an impressive figure, bearded, tall and broad across the shoulders, his brow furrowed as if lost in the depth of thought, the face near identical to one Vaelin had seen before.

“It’s him!” he said, turning to Wise Bear, his heart thumping in excitement. “The statue from the Fallen City! You see it?”

Wise Bear nodded, his expression markedly less enthusiastic. “Story known to Bear People,” he said. “Great Boat People brought death to the ice.”

“Yes.” Astorek moved on, his torch revealing a scene of devastation, a settlement like the one they had just left, but littered with corpses. “They came peacefully, seeking to trade treasures for knowledge. They had no warriors, offered no violence, but still they brought death. A great sickness that laid waste to every settlement they visited until the three tribes were but a remnant.”

The torchlight revealed the woman again, standing alone this time, her face shown in profile, lowered and drawn in great sadness. Her hands were held to her face, red with blood from finger to wrist. “It was the woman who saved us,” Astorek said. “How is not fully understood, but she gave her blood and it saved us, the sickness faded. But . . .” He illuminated the next image, the two men standing over the woman’s body. The handsome man’s smile had gone, his face now hard with anger, whilst the bearded man wore an expression of stoic forbearance, though whatever ancient hand had captured his face had clearly seen the grief he was trying to hide.

“The tall man took his great boat and sailed away,” Astorek said. “But the other man stayed, unwilling to stray far from the body of the woman, refusing to give it to the ice as was custom. Then . . .” He revealed a shadowy image in silhouette, a man pulling a sled through a snowstorm. “He took her body north when winter came and was not seen again by the eyes of the ice people. But . . . he did leave a gift.”

Astorek paused, regarding Vaelin with an expression that was part reluctance, part awe. “They knew many things, these Great Boat People, the working of metal and the reckoning of the stars, even the course of the future.”

The painting revealed by Astorek’s torch was the largest yet, covering the wall from floor to ceiling and executed with an artistry and clarity that would even have outshone Alornis. It was the face of a man, perhaps thirty years in age, his features angular rather than handsome, his eyes dark, a faint smile playing over his lips. It was a hard face, not unused to privation from its slightly gaunt aspect, or violence if Vaelin was any judge. He had looked into the eyes of enough killers to know . . .

All thought fled as the realisation dawned. He felt Dahrena move to his side, taking his hand which, he realised, had begun to shake.

“The one who will save us from a peril yet unseen,” Astorek said. “He called him the Raven’s Shadow.”

PART III

Anyone who claims they have a genius for war should be regarded as the greatest of fools. For the successful conduct of war is an exercise in the management of folly.

—QUEEN LYRNA AL NIEREN, COLLECTED SAYINGS, GREAT LIBRARY OF THE UNIFIED REALM

VERNIERS’ ACCOUNT

We put in at Marbellis on the thirty-fifth day of our voyage where the captain took ten crewmen ashore, each laden with an impressive pile of loot and weapons harvested from various unfortunate Volarians at the Teeth and Alltor. “A ship feeds on cargo,” he grunted at me before departing. He was slightly more inclined towards conversation these days, but still refused to share any words with Fornella. “Should fetch half a hold’s worth of spice with this lot. Stay on board and keep an eye on that witch of yours.”

She joined me at the rail as I surveyed the docks and the city beyond. “I had heard this place described as the treasure of the northern empire,” she said. “I must say it seems somewhat tarnished.”

Marbellis had been in a continual state of reconstruction since the war, the various burnt and wasted districts slowly disappearing as the great port healed itself. But whilst a city could be repaired the hearts of its citizens were a different matter. The years since the war had seen many appeals to the Emperor for more direct and lasting retribution against the Northmen, the loudest and most numerous originating in Marbellis.

“‘We found a jewel in the desert,’” I quoted. “‘And from it fashioned a charred cinder.’”

“Pretty,” she said. “One of yours, I assume.”

“Actually, it was penned by a young poet I met in Varinshold. The son, in fact, of the general who commanded the army that nearly destroyed this city.”

“Couldn’t get to the father, I assume?”

“No. He refused all requests for an interview. His son, however, was happy to talk as long as I paid his nightly wine bill.”

“Did he have any excuse for this? Any particular reason?”

I shook my head. “Just regret, and guilt though he took no part in the slaughter. He was keen to point out that his father had been quick to quell the excesses of his army, executing over a hundred men for various dreadful deeds in the process.”

“Tokrev would have executed them too. Dead slaves are of no value.”

I turned back from the rail and started for the cabin we shared. “We have work to do.”

• • •

Over the preceding weeks our researches had done much to expand my knowledge of ancient myth but as yet revealed scant evidence as to the Ally’s origins or the whereabouts of the endless man he sought. There were a few references to the machinations of dark gods or malign spirits in the oldest, mostly fragmentary tales left by the denizens of what later became the Volarian Empire, but sorting fact from superstitious delusion was simply impossible. The endless man proved a more fruitful line of inquiry, unearthing no less than seven different versions of his story, mostly from Asrael and revolving around the unfortunate subject’s rejection of the Faith. However, there were other tales, one from Cumbrael which cast the fellow as a godless heretic who committed the ultimate crime of burning the Ten Books, finding himself cursed by the World Father to contemplate his sin for all eternity. Today, however, my research uncovered a Meldenean legend telling of a man washed up on the Isles after a shipwreck, a man who should have drowned but lived when all his crew-mates perished. He named himself Urlan, come in search of the Old Gods.

I looked up from the scroll as the tramp of many feet on the deck told of the captain’s success in securing cargo. Fornella had fallen to slumber already, lying naked on the bunk as was her perennial wont. She seemed to sleep more as the days went by and ever more grey appeared in her hair. You grow old, mistress, I thought, surveying her nakedness and finding, for all the wrinkles that now etched her face, she was still beautiful. I tossed a blanket over her and went outside.

Night had fallen and the deck was brightly lit with torches, most clustered at the bow where a persistent chopping sound could be heard. I went forward to find the captain standing with crossed arms, stern visage fixed on the sight of a man suspended by ropes to hang over the bow. The man was old but spry, clearly Alpiran from his colouring, working a hammer and chisel over the jawless figurehead, wood chips flying as he erased the scars from its snout. I noted a fresh but as yet unshaped block of wood had been nailed into place to fashion a new jaw for the serpent.

“Crew don’t like to sail without a god to calm the waves,” the captain grunted, watching the carpenter work. “Paid him triple to have it done by morning.”

“Which is he?” I asked, gesturing at the serpent. “An old god or a new one?”

The captain favoured me with a squint, faint amusement in his eyes. “Finding my people worthy of study now, scribbler?”

“It might help, with my mission.”

He shrugged, nodding at the figurehead. “Not a he, a she. Levansis, sister to the great serpent god Moesis. Though she despised her brother for his vicious ways, she wept when Margentis destroyed his body and her tears calmed the sea for ten full years. When the storms rise, she’s the one we pray to.”

My knowledge of Meldenean history was scant but I knew their pantheon dated back to their colonisation of the Isles some six hundred years ago, and from my survey of the ruins found there, they had clearly been occupied long before that. “A new god then,” I said. “What can you tell me of the old ones?”

He looked away and I noted how his crossed arms tightened further. “Them we do not pray to.”