Moths to a Flame Read online

  The curved blade slashed at him again, he felt the steel sizzle past his cheek.

  A baby’s yell, loud and terrified, shivered through the chamber. Caught off guard, Lai glanced round—

  And Rho Jhan uncurled like a snake rearing to strike; his razhir tip slashed Lai even as he vainly, exhaustedly parried, scoring his shoulder open.

  The mausoleum door burst open and the mob came tearing inside, torches held high.

  ‘Where’s the Arkhan?’

  ‘Here,’ Rho Jhan said, gesturing with his razhir. ‘Here’s your Arkhan. This pathetic, shambling wreck of a man.’

  Lai narrowed his eyes in the torchlight; there was something familiar about the leader of the rioters …

  ‘Mirghar?’

  ‘Lai Dhar? What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m here to defend the Arkhan.’ Lai clutched at his shoulder; blood trickled out from between his fingers, hot and stickily wet.

  ‘What do you want of me?’ Melmeth came forwards into the torchlight, carrying the sobbing Dion,

  ‘We want justice. And we want our freedom.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Slaves. Brandslaves.’

  ‘But – but I gave orders that the slaves should be freed!’ Melmeth shook his head. ‘Were all my orders countermanded? All my reforms?’

  ‘What are you waiting for? Kill the tyrant!’ yelled one of the crowd and the slaves surged forwards.

  ‘Wait!’ Lai cried, shifting the blade to his left hand. ‘Listen to Melmeth. Did you hear what he said? He gave orders that you should all be freed. And for that, Ophar and his hierophants have kept him prisoner—’

  ‘Of course Melmeth says he intended to free you.’ Rho Jhan’s jeering voice drowned out Lai’s. ‘He’ll say anything you want to hear if you’ll spare his life. Is that what you want from your Arkhan? Weakness, craven cowardice? Let me kill him now – and be done with it.’

  ‘Proof,’ Mirghar said. ‘Where is the proof?’ His face was strained, taut.

  ‘There is no proof,’ Lai said. ‘Who do you believe? Melmeth – or Rho Jhan? You have a choice.’ He looked Mirghar directly in the eyes. ‘I’ve made my choice. And to kill Melmeth, you’ll have to kill me first.’

  Another slave came pushing through the throng to stand beside Mirghar, blade in hand.

  ‘How do we know you won’t renege on your promise, Melmeth?’

  It was Eryl: lithe and muscular, her shaven head gleaming in the torchlight, she had altered almost beyond recognition from the frail girl Lai remembered from the dye works.

  ‘Look around you.’ Melmeth’s gesture encompassed the moth-eaten effigies that silently stared down at them. ‘Half the wealth of the House of Memizhon is concealed in this chamber. It is yours to buy passage home to your countries or to do with as you will.’

  ‘And will you let yourselves be bribed?’ Rho Jhan said, sneering. ‘It’s a trick. Another Memizhon trick.’

  ‘Look closely at the effigies,’ Melmeth said. ‘The eyes are sapphires, emeralds, topazes, all precious stones.’

  ‘Doesn’t it wring your hearts?’ cried Rho Jhan. ‘It suits my lord Arkhan to be charitable now – now that his life hangs by a thread. How can you be sure he won’t set his Tarkhas on your trail, accusing you of stealing his treasure?’

  Eryl dug her fingers into the yellowing wax face of a grey-bearded effigy, its dusty hair a nest of cobwebs, and plucked out an eye. Holding its jewelled facets up to the torchlight, she let out a soft whistle of amazement.

  ‘This isn’t paste – it’s genuine.’

  ‘There’s only one man here whose opinion I trust – Lai Dhar.’ Mirghar turned to face the other slaves. ‘Let them go – and kill the Enhirran.’

  ‘No—’ Lai began but the brandslaves had already launched themselves upon Rho Jhan, dragging him down, tearing the razhir from his hand even as he tried to beat them off.

  ‘Aiiii!’ Rho Jhan screamed once, a terrible, grating scream. And then there was no noise but the sound of rending and hacking. Lai, sickened and faint, looked away.

  ‘Go now,’ Mirghar said. ‘Take Melmeth with you. While you can.’

  Lai nodded.

  ‘I’ll never forget this.’

  Mirghar briefly touched his forehead in salutation; Eryl rose on tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

  ‘A life for a life. Now the debt is paid.’

  Dawn on the banks of the Yssil. A wind stirred the willows on the far bank; a pall of rising smoke besmirched the clear sky.

  Lai gazed out over the mist-wreathed water meadows. The last hours had passed as in a drear dream. Weak from Rho Jhan’s blade-slash, he had doggedly led his charges through the dank unlit subterranean passages beneath the city, struggling onwards through the darkness until they reached the Adriel Gate.

  ‘Sunrise,’ Lai said dazedly.

  ‘That red glow isn’t the sunrise.’ Azhrel came to stand beside him, steadying him. ‘The citadel’s on fire.’

  ‘Myn-Dhiel – in flames?’ Melmeth cried. Laili, Dion clasped tight in her arms, turned to look back at the city.

  ‘It must have spread from the arena,’ she said.

  Lai’s teeth juddered together; the world around him seemed bleak and chill.

  ‘You’re shivering with fever.’ Azhrel eased Lai down onto the bank. With gentle fingers he eased away the makeshift pad he had fixed over Lai’s shoulder to staunch the blood. ‘Hm. This wound needs cleansing and dressing.’

  Lai shook his head.

  ‘Must – get them to safety first—’ He tried to sit up; the slightest movement sent stabs of fire shooting through his body.

  Lie back, Lai … Her voice so soft in his mind, so different from the Clodolë he had first known. The breeze stirred her floating hair, it brushed against his skin, strands of spidersilk.

  Tentatively, she reached out to touch the jagged gash. Lai flinched … but where her fingertips brushed the wound only a cool, numbing sensation seeped into the skin, easing the pain. Touch of silvered lips, pressed to his forehead, his shoulder …

  ‘Clodolë?’ he said in quiet amazement.

  A drop of water splashed onto Lai’s upturned face then a regular pattering began.

  The dream.

  ‘Is it raining …?’

  But in his dream the rain had fallen on the Sacred Grove … and here it was falling on the city, dampening the fires, quenching the flames.

  Clodolë’s hand touched his.

  Yes. It’s raining.

  The rain fell steadily from a cloud-palled sky onto the city. The cobbles were puddled with muddy waters, rivulets ran down the steep alleyways, churning grey with sodden ashes.

  Smoke still hung everywhere, the damp, fizzling smoke that lingers like yellow wintersmog long after fire has been damped out.

  High on the brow of the hill, the seven harkentowers of the ancient citadel smouldered, a jagged-spined, fire-blackened crown, a row of broken teeth, snarling their defiance at the city below.

  No one took much notice of the bedraggled, dirt-smeared figures slowly stumbling through the rain-drenched streets. Galingal Lane was deserted, the peeling plaster walls stained grey by the driving rain.

  ‘Just a little further,’ Azhrel said, feeling Lai’s steps slacken.

  Rain dripped onto their heads from the tamarisk trees. Rain poured down the slate roofs and spouted from broken gutters. Azhrel tugged at the bell-pull. The bell jangled far away inside the house.

  No sound of approaching footsteps resulted, only the monotonous spatter of pelting raindrops.

  ‘Mirali! It’s me! Open up!’

  Lai began to sway on his feet.

  ‘Hold up there, Lai!’ Azhrel muttered. ‘We’re not beaten yet. Now … if I’d survived a riot, would I open my door to anyone who rang the bell?’

  ‘No, Maistre Arlan,’ came an irate voice from the other side of the wall, ‘and neither would I alert the whole street to my arrival home!’

  The weathered timbers c
reaked open a crack; Lai began to slide slowly to his knees on the muddy cobbles.

  ‘Help me, Mirali—’

  Azhrel caught Lai as he fainted and dragged him over the doorstep.

  Lai heard Azhrel’s voice as if from the far end of a long, dusty corridor. Someone was touching his shoulder, probing it, fingers moving nimbly, expertly across the jagged wound. He winced, anticipating the scarlet pain of razhir-torn flesh … and felt nothing.

  Azhrel must have dosed him with black poppy-juice, nepenthe to dull the pain. There should be pain. Rho Jhan had slashed his shoulder open, there had been blood—

  ‘He’s stirring. Lai. Can you hear me?’

  Light penetrated his closed lids, the yellowed light of an oil lamp. He must be lying in the tiring room at the arena. Mithiel had spared him, the deathstones had fallen in his favour … how else could he be here?

  Azhrel was peering quizzically into his face. Behind him stood Laili, her freckled face pale and drawn, her eyes dark-rimmed with fatigue.

  Dull stirring of memory, transient as a pale sunshaft piercing rainclouds …

  ‘My shoulder—’

  ‘Look for yourself.’ Azhrel eased back the dressing.

  Lai slowly turned his head, expecting a raw, oozing gash … and saw that beneath the bandages the jagged edges had already begun to knit cleanly together.

  ‘But … how?’

  ‘She touched you. She healed you.’

  ‘So you were right, Arlan,’ Lai whispered, letting his head drop back on the pillow. ‘The Changed … are healers …’

  Laili stroked his head, the soft stubble of regrowth.

  ‘Your hair. Your beautiful hair. You had it shaved off – to save me.’

  ‘It’ll … grow again …’

  Fluttering of wings – what was that flicker of white behind Laili? Lai’s hand rose, pointing accusingly.

  ‘But – but we destroyed them all—’

  In a glass nectarium, moonmoths clustered close to the light.

  ‘These are the last,’ Azhrel said.

  ‘But you gave your word—’

  ‘They won’t escape. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.’

  * * * * *

  Melmeth and Laili sat in silence in Azhrel’s kitchen. Dion lay curled contentedly in his father’s arms.

  ‘Laili. We must talk.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘You’re angry with me. You thought I had abandoned you. And you have been through a terrible ordeal. But we must try to put these things behind us—’

  His voice was like a caress, soothing away all the bitterness of the past months, smoothing away the pain—

  ‘Wait!’ she cried. Dion started, whimpering against his father’s breast. ‘What are you saying? That I should forget everything that has happened? The long months alone? The betrayal? The fear? I have endured all these things and more, Melmeth my lord, to bear your son. And in the enduring I have become what I am today. Don’t just – lull them away, as if they had never been. I don’t want palliatives. I want somewhere to raise my – our – child in peace.’

  Dion opened his eyes. A sad, low grizzling sound began in his throat. She wanted to stop shouting, she had no wish to upset the babe but the anger still burned on, bright as the hierophants’ pyre.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I have Dion to think of. Don’t you understand? Right now all I want for us is a place of safety.’

  He raised his face towards her and she saw that he was weeping.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Laili,’ he whispered. ‘We need to give this time. Time together – healing time.’

  ‘Tell me the truth,’ she said after a while. ‘How much can you see?’

  ‘I can hear your voice,’ he said. There was no point in lying; she would know if he was trying to deceive her. ‘But all I can see of you is a vague shadowblur …’

  ‘Oh, love …’ She placed her hands on his forehead, gentle pressure of fingertips as soft as flower petals.

  ‘I need you, Laili.’

  Tears trickled from his damaged eyes down his cheeks, slowly dropping one by one onto Laili’s face. He reached out to brush the wetness away – and Laili’s fingers closed around his fingers, slowly, tightly.

  CHAPTER 27

  The smell of burning still charred the air as Lai clambered up the rocky scree, clothes tearing on the black zylthorns. There was a gap in the brown rock just wide enough for a man to squeeze through…

  The parade ground was deserted; the Tarkhas House, its wings extending around three sides of the courtyard, looked as though the fires that had ravaged Myn-Dhiel had raged through its august walls as well. Shutters dangled at crazed angles from their hinges, the cobbles were littered with shards of broken glass.

  He pushed open the armoury doors; the explosion Azhrel had set off in the powder room deep underground might have destroyed a section of the tunnels but it had left the barrel-vaulted roof and sturdy walls undamaged. Spacious and airy, it was ideal for his present purpose. What better place to set up a healing house than here? It was a pleasing irony that the walls which had resounded to the clash of blades would now shelter the wounded and the homeless.

  The massive door to the Tarkhas House had been left ajar; as Lai pushed it open he saw that its paintwork was blistered and scarred as though repeatedly hacked with axes.

  Within, the fine stone staircase was the only vestige left of the grand apartments he remembered. The tapestries of azure and blue were gone, the Tarkhas trophies, the antique weapons on the walls. And yet if he closed his eyes, he could see the stairs crowded with tarkhastars, he could see Ymarys come swaggering out of his rooms, to show off his latest outrageously expensive outfit, his pale hair perfumed, his silver eyes glinting maliciously with the latest court gossip …

  Echo of laughter, fey and mocking …

  Ts anyone there?’

  His voice echoed in the empty stairwell; high above where the roof was open to the sky, startled pigeons flapped away.

  He was not sure what drove him to climb the stair to Ymarys’s rooms; only that he found himself opening the door and staring forlornly at the wreckage the looters had left.

  Maybe he had hoped to find some trace of Ymarys’s presence, some memento. Anything worth stealing had been stolen. Wisps of torn silks clung to broken panels, the gorgeous cushions and luxurious couches had been ripped open; mice were nesting in the exposed springs, amidst the shredded horsehair and kapok.

  Lai knelt down and sifted through the debris; pages from folios of exquisite verse, smashed goblets of Yrildian glass …

  And then something caught his eye. He dug deeper, sending spiders scuttling away. It lay half-hidden beneath a sticky tangle of webs, almost as if it were waiting for him to find it.

  Ymarys’s rosewood flute.

  Lai carefully lifted it out and, wiping the spiderdust off against his jacket, examined it to see if it were cracked.

  Moistening his lips, he lifted it to his lips and blew a few exploratory notes.

  The notes hung in the air, a little breathy – he was out of practice – but true.

  He hugged the flute to him.

  Perysse was burying her dead. As Lai made his way through the city back to Galingal Lane, the stark sight of the gaping mass graves wrung his heart with pity. Tarkhastars from both Houses, Zhudiciar and Memizhon, worked side by side, dragging bodies from the burned buildings, tipping them into the lime pits. The last smouldering fires were out … and with the fires, the anger had died. Now Lai sensed only a numbness and a feeling of loss, of purposelessness. The people who had been howling for Memizhon blood now wandered past him aimlessly, or sat amidst the rubble, listless and lost.

  The instant Lai entered Azhrel’s garden, he felt as if he had crossed the bourne of another world. The rain washed air smelt sharp and sweet, tinged with a taint of winter woodsmoke. A mistle-thrush sang in the bare branches of the ancient orchard trees above a carpet of fallen russet leaves.
r />   Lai caught sight of Melmeth sitting beneath the trees.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Melmeth called as Lai drew near.

  ‘Lai, zhan.’

  ‘So. Tell me how it is in my city.’

  ‘The storm has raged itself out.’ Lai faltered. ‘But … there are many dead, many more sick and wounded.’

  ‘Do they still call out against my House?’

  ‘They are too exhausted to call out. They need—’

  Lai stopped, hearing voices in the lane. The garden door creaked open and Azhrel came in, followed by another man, well-shrouded in a hooded cape.

  ‘I’ll take you to him.’ Azhrel led the visitor across the dew-soaked grass towards them; Lai tensed, recognising the face shadowed beneath the hood.

  ‘My lord Zhudiciar?’

  ‘The same.’ Beneath the hood, Lai saw the Zhudiciar’s eyes were red-rimmed with sleeplessness, his usually immaculate grey beard untrimmed, unkempt.

  ‘Why did you bring him here?’ Lai blazed at Azhrel.

  ‘I asked Azhrel to bring him,’ Melmeth said, raising one hand as if to quell Lai’s outburst.

  ‘Zhan.’ Jhafir fell to his knees on the wet grass and seizing Melmeth’s hand, kissed it. ‘You are safe. Maybe there is hope for us, after all …’

  Melmeth reached out and placed his hands on Jhafir’s shoulders to raise him to his feet.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Laili came running out of the house. She stared accusingly at Jhafir – and then at Lai.

  ‘I can make plans to escort you to the summer palace at Shandaira, my lord, until we have set everything to rights in the city.’

  ‘Run away? How will that look? “When the city most needed him, the Arkhan retired to the safety of his summer palace.” No. I’m staying here.’ Melmeth had clenched his fists as if he were ready to combat anyone who gainsaid him.

  ‘But what of Laili and Dion?’ Lai burst out. ‘Don’t you think they deserve a safe haven? After all they’ve been through—’

  ‘I can speak for myself, Lai,’ Laili said. The long weeks of incarceration had wrought more than a physical change in her; Lai sensed a new toughness, a determination that she would fight her own corner against all odds. ‘If Melmeth wishes to stay then I will stay too.’