Flight into Darkness Page 4

  So why had he turned away from Oranir? It had seemed the selfless thing to do. Yet the truth was that he had been traveling alone for so long that the thought of having a companion terrified him.

  Not ready I'm just not ready.

  The dry aroma of turmeric and frying onions wafted into the room; Serah must have begun preparations for dinner. Sometimes the old couple invited him to share their evening meal; their own sons were far away in Serindher, looking after the business there, and Rieuk suspected that Serah missed her boys. Sometimes she'd murmur that he was about the same height as Chorpan… or that Itakh liked to drink his coffee sweetened with honey and cinnamon.

  Rieuk became aware that he had been staring unseeing at the diamond for some while. He laid it down and wiped the sticky sweat from his forehead and fingers. The air in the back street was stiflingly hot by late afternoon.

  Why couldn't I bring myself to accept Imri's death until now? Because Lord Estael fed me false hope? And if I've finally accepted that he's dead, why am I going to Azhkendir?

  “To make certain that his soul is truly free,” he muttered to himself. It was the last thing he could do for Imri. He concentrated on the rough diamond before him, piercing to the heart of the stone with his mind's eye. A swift burst of energy, sliver-sharp… and the first flawless facet was revealed. “I have to do this alone.”

  “You want a passage to Azhkendir?” The ship's captain shook the contents of Rieuk's money bag out on the table. “Why d'you want to visit that godforsaken country?”

  Barrels of Smarnan wine were being unloaded from the ship moored alongside with much shouting and whistling from the crew. Rieuk had to raise his voice to make himself heard. “Trade must be good for you to venture so far north.”

  The captain shrugged as he counted out the coins. “It's a living.”

  The midday sunlight sparkled on the dark azure of the sea, impossibly bright. In this intense, burnished heat it was difficult to imagine the desolate snows of Azhkendir, cut off by frozen seas for a third of the year.

  A shadow flitted across the sun. Rieuk glanced up, feeling Ormas stir uneasily within him. An Emissary? Were the magi tracking him? White-winged gulls were wheeling overhead but, as he shaded his damaged sight against the dazzle, he could see no trace of a shadow hawk. Perhaps I imagined it. Even though he was in Djihan-Djihar and out of the Arkhan's jurisdiction, his escape seemed to be going just a little too smoothly.

  The captain of the Satrina had taken on a number of passengers, mostly merchants bound for the port of Vermeille in Smarna. Thanks to Barjik's contacts, Rieuk was traveling as a merchant too, trusted to carry out one final errand for his master.

  As the ship left the port, Rieuk stood on deck, gazing back at the haze of heat hanging like a dusty fog above the ochre-and-sand-red buildings.

  Gulls still wheeled and screamed overhead as the sails filled with wind. Out beyond the calm waters of the port, the waves grew choppy and the Satrina began to pitch and roll.

  Once Rieuk would have been unable to stay on deck, relishing the fierce gusts that left a tang of salt on his lips and tongue. He would have slunk below, groaning as the first pangs of seasickness overcame him. But Imri had cured him of that curse, opening up a whole new world of experiences to him, and for that alone, he would always be thankful.

  As the Satrina sailed into the turquoise vasts of the Southern Ocean and the coastline of Djihan-Djihar dwindled to a twilit blur on the horizon, Rieuk felt as if he was finally leaving behind all the long years of servitude. He leaned on the ship's rail, watching the sinking sun set the waves on fire.

  Time to study the maps of Azhkendir he had bought from a dusty bookseller in Tyriana.

  He turned from the rail to make his way below, taking care where he placed his feet; coils of thick rope lay strewn across the deck as the crewmen changed tack. A man was coming directly toward him from the lower deck, his tall frame silhouetted against the fiery glow of the setting sun. Rieuk stopped.

  “O—Oranir?” he stammered.

  “Did you think that I would let you go without me?” Oranir's face was in shadow, although Rieuk caught a smolder of scarlet from behind his lenses. “You can't send me back now. The Satrina's not putting in to port until we reach Smarna. I checked with the captain.”

  “How long have you been following me?”

  “Long enough. You covered your trail well.”

  “So did you, for me not to have noticed.” And for some reason not wholly clear to himself, Rieuk began to laugh. As the last gilded rays of the setting sun faded, the sea darkened from blue to inky purple and the sailors began to light the lanterns on the rigging.

  Oranir moved closer. “I'm coming with you. To Azhkendir. Or wherever you go.”

  “Even though you'll be a fugitive too?”

  Oranir's mouth took on a stubborn set. “I'd rather be on the run with you than back in Ondhessar serving a madman.” He glanced at Rieuk over the top of his spectacles and Rieuk caught another warning glint from his fire-riven eyes. “So don't try to talk me out of it.”

  “You can still take a ship back from Smarna—” Rieuk began.

  “And didn't you do the same?” Oranir drew closer still, his voice softer. “Didn't you abandon your college to follow Imri Boldiszar? Lord Estael told me so once. That must have taken some courage.”

  “Courage?” Rieuk heard the taint of ironic laughter in his voice. He was about to say, I was all but expelled for disobeying my first master, but for some reason, the confession would not come. Only then did he realize that he wanted to look good in Oranir's eyes.

  “Make me your apprentice.” Oranir reached out, placing his hands on Rieuk's shoulders.

  “But you're already apprenticed to Aqil—”

  “Make a new bond with me now.” Oranir's face was so close to Rieuk's that he could smell the faint sweetness of caraway on his breath.

  “Is this truly what you want?” Rieuk murmured.

  “Do it.”

  Rieuk drew Oranir's head toward his and gently pressed his lips to Oranir's. As he did so, he felt a shiver catch fire within him as he sensed Oranir's powers.

  “Teach me,” Oranir said softly. “Teach me everything you know.”

  CHAPTER 3

  The empty moorlands, stretching into the misty horizon, were a living tapestry embroidered with the vivid purples of heather and the coppery brown of the dying bracken.

  Rieuk and Oranir had been tramping across the moors for days, skirting the barren, burned land the locals called the Arkhel Waste. At night they had taken shelter in ruined crofts or shepherd's huts.

  Whenever they asked anyone they met—a lone shepherd herding his ragged sheep, or a hunter with a brace of rabbits slung over his shoulder, the answer was always the same. “The old shaman woman? They say you can only find her if she wants you to.”

  “Look.” Oranir pointed to the sky. “Is that smoke?”

  A thin plume rose into the pale sky, so faint that it could have been mistaken for a trail of mist or cloud. They hurried toward it but soon stopped, bewildered, seeing no sign of a hut or a cottage.

  “I know you're here, Spirit Singer!” Rieuk cried into the desolate landscape. As if in answer, there came the distant peeping of a small heathland bird, perched on top of a tall clump of reeds. “I won't give up. I'll go on searching until I find you.”

  A breeze, tinged with the sulfurous tang of marsh mud, suddenly stirred the white wispy heads of bog cotton.

  “Rieuk.” Oranir nudged him. He turned to see the air rippling as though a heat haze were lifting from the mossy ground. Where there had been nothing but gorse bushes, Rieuk saw a little cottage, with a thin ribbon of blue smoke rising from its awry chimney. Hens scuttled about in the stony yard, scratching for food.

  “You young mages need better training,” said a querulous voice. “It took you long enough to find me!” An old woman with a shock of windblown grey hair was leaning on the cottage gate, watching them with bead
y eyes.

  “Are you the Spirit Singer?” Rieuk asked cautiously.

  “Malusha's the name, and I'll be frank with you. I don't like your kind. Never have. Not that I've seen one of your tainted mage blood in many a long year. Not that I see that much of anyone, these days. My lords and ladies keep me too busy.”

  “Your lords and ladies?”

  She jerked a thumb up toward the dilapidated roof of the cottage. Hunched close together perched a row of sleeping owls, their feathers white as the snow on the distant peaks.

  “The owls?” Rieuk caught Oranir's sidelong warning glance. Were they wasting their time? “Eccentric” seemed a polite description of Malusha; “out of her wits” seemed closer to the truth.

  “Not just any owls.” She glared at him and he flinched, riven by the malice of her bright, mad eyes. “Arkhel's Owls. D'you know nothing, Magus? They can host the spirits of the dead.”

  The spirits of the dead. Had she read his mind?

  “Well, there's no sense us all catching cold in this wind; you'd better come inside, seeing as you've traveled halfway across the world to consult me.” She beckoned them to follow her, shooing clucking hens from their path.

  Inside the cluttered cottage, it was so murky that it took Rieuk a while to get his bearings. Oranir slipped his hand under his arm and guided him into the center of the room.

  “You can take your spectacles off. There's no need to pretend around me,” she said, pouring water into the battered kettle suspended over the fire. It was more an order than a suggestion. As she straightened up, she turned to gaze keenly first at Rieuk, then at Oranir. “Crystal magus,” she said, “and earthfire magus. Two rare talents.”

  “I see that there's little we can hide from you,” Rieuk said, wondering what else her sharp brown eyes had spotted.

  “Sit down,” she ordered, moving a pile of crumpled, stained blankets from a wooden settle near the fire. Glancing up, Rieuk saw white-feathered bodies huddled close together on one of the beams: more owls. Her familiars.

  “So, while the kettle's on the boil for tea, tell me: What brings you halfway across the world from Ondhessar?”

  * * *

  By the time steam was puffing from the kettle's spout, Rieuk had given away rather more about himself than he'd intended. There was something about the smoky warmth of the cottage and her open manner that made him feel he was able to confide in her.

  “If your dead master's soul was preserved in a soul glass, that means there's something else you're not telling me.” Malusha got up, bones creaking, and went to make tea. The firelight illumined the grave expression on her wrinkled face as she concentrated on mea suring out the dry leaves into the pot and Rieuk saw how wrong his initial impression of her had been. Beneath the wild hair and the owl feathers, a wise and perceptive mind had been assessing them both. But how far could he trust her?

  “You practice soul-stealing, don't you?” She shuffled back, carefully carrying mugs of tea. “There's no point denying it. I've heard the legends about Ondhessar.” She settled down opposite them, cradling her mug between gnarled fingers. “I can't say I approve. There're too many Lost Souls wandering around the Ways Beyond as it is, without you adding to them.”

  Rieuk set the tea down, untasted. “Could that be what became of Imri?” He could not hide the tremor in his voice.

  She shook her head. “Can't say for sure.”

  “But what does that mean? To be a Lost Soul?”

  “Listen, Master Mage, what you're asking of me is unusual and highly risky—to the both of us. There're two options: one, to go looking for him far into the Ways Beyond, or two, to try to charm your dead master's soul here so that you can ask him what you need to.”

  One last chance to speak to Imri after so many years… Rieuk felt a jagged blade twisting in his heart. What would Imri say to him? Would he be filled with bitterness that his last chance to return to life had been dashed forever? Could he endure such a bitter reunion? But he had traveled this far to complete this one last rite for Imri, so he knew he must find the courage.

  “To do a summoning, I need a lock of hair, a possession, a relic of some kind.”

  “I—I have nothing.” Why had that not occurred to him before?

  “The soul glass?” Oranir said softly.

  “Of course.” Rieuk brought out the lotus glass from the soft leather pouch he wore around his neck and handed it to Malusha.

  A shrewd little smile was glimmering in her eyes. “You do realize, don't you, that for this to work, you're going to have to tell me your real name.”

  Unable to look away from her penetrating gaze, Rieuk felt his cheeks burning.

  “We didn't intend to deceive you. It's just… we've been traveling for so long, it seems more natural to use assumed names. My name is Mordiern; Rieuk Mordiern.”

  “And your kind are no more welcome these days, I imagine, than when I was a girl. It's a curse to be born with powers as strong as yours.” Again Rieuk felt that bright, incisive gleam pierce through his defenses, reading deep into his soul.

  Malusha brought out a stringed wooden instrument shaped a little like the ancient dulcimer Rieuk remembered from childhood in the village schoolroom.

  “This is a gusly,” she said, answering his unspoken question as she began to test the wire strings that filled the cottage with a resonant jangling. “Some call us Spirit Singers because we charm the spirits of the dead to us with our singing. There's a little more to it than minstrelsy, of course…”

  As she played a long, slow succession of notes, the cottage began to grow darker, as if with each note she were weaving a protective veil of sound around them. But then each string began to toll like a bell—a somber, funereal sound that seemed to draw the darkness closer still. Rieuk sensed Oranir shift a little closer to him, as if instinctively seeking his protection. His head felt strange, as if his senses were altering; his sight was dimming yet his hearing was growing more acute. A drug… poison…

  “What was in that tea, Malusha?” His tongue moved sluggishly, the words coming out clumsily.

  “Nothing harmful. Just a few herbs to help you relax…”

  Malusha began to sing, a soft, deep-throated crooning at first, wordless, blending with the bell-like reverberations of the strings. The walls of the firelit cottage slowly receded, melting into rushing darkness. Rieuk felt a shiver run through his body as he heard the Spirit Singer call a name, her voice suddenly strong, compelling, commanding. “Imri! Imri Boldiszar!”

  For a moment the swirling confusion around Rieuk stilled and he saw, to his bewilderment, the indistinct, spectral faces of the dead, each one staring at him in mute appeal.

  Rieuk followed Malusha through hall after lofty hall where indistinct figures wandered aimlessly. Time and again, she called on Imri's name. Many of the wandering souls looked up when they heard her voice, their eyes filled with longing. Then he saw the hope fade as they turned away.

  “So many,” he heard himself murmuring in horror. “So very many…”

  Yet not one had answered Malusha's command and as she struck another flurry of notes, the pale faces were gone, swept away into the airy dark.

  “So very many…” Rieuk was still repeating the words as he opened his eyes to see that he was back in his own body. Malusha was watching him intently, her gnarled hands resting on the silent strings of her gusly.

  “What was that terrible place?” Rieuk could not rid his mind of the sight of the wandering, aimless dead, nor lose the dry taste of dust in his mouth. “And who were they? All those—”

  “Those unhappy, unfortunate ones?” She finished the question for him. “You saw some of the Lost Souls, those who can't find their path to the Ways Beyond.”

  “But he wasn't there. Imri wasn't there. That has to be a good sign, doesn't it? It means that he's not one of the Lost?”

  Malusha did not answer straightaway. And her silence did nothing to calm Rieuk's growing sense of apprehension.

&nb
sp; “Or does being lost mean that you no longer remember who you were?” He went over and knelt before her. “Malusha, tell me the truth.”

  “The Lady,” she said at last. “The one who watches over the ways between our world and the worlds beyond. She's been gone too long. Where is she?” She fixed him with a penetrating stare. “I think you may know.”

  “The Lady?” said Oranir. “You mean Azilis?”

  “Elesstar, Azilis, Azilia… she has many names. But things are beginning to unravel without her. Can't you sense it? The balance between the worlds is shifting. The place you call the Rift is unstable. If she doesn't go back soon, the souls of the dead will start to return. How can they find peace if she isn't there to guide them?”

  Rieuk let out a sigh. “I tried,” he said. “I tried to persuade her to go back. But she did this to me.” He ripped off his eye patch, revealing his damaged face to Malusha. She did not flinch, but merely put out her hand and gently stroked his cheek.

  “I have no more answers for you; I'm only a foolish old woman who's outlived her time.”

  Rieuk hung his head. He had placed so many of his hopes in Malusha's skills and all he had gained was more questions.

  “So your journey isn't over yet!” She let out a chuckle. “I'm sending you to see an old friend of mine. He's a shaman. He owes me a favor or two.”

  “Chinua's the name.” The tea merchant bowed, smiling, to Rieuk and Oranir. “It will be an honor to help a friend of Malusha's. Any friend of the Spirit Singer is a friend of mine.”

  Malusha had sent them to the market in the city of Azhgorod. And there, amid the hectic bustle of shoppers and farmers, they had spotted the little shop selling tea at the far corner of the square. Reaching the stall was another matter, for pigs were rooting around in the cabbage leaves, formidable Azhkendi matrons were jostling to get to the best produce first, and the air was filled with the deafening cries of the stallholders proclaiming their wares. The customers waiting in line to purchase black, green, or jasmine tea at the open window of the Khitari tea merchant's shop were quite decorous by comparison.