In the Earth Abides the Flame (65 page)

The Council sent immediately for replacements. While the kings of Deruys, Redana'a and Sna Vaztha might be suspicious, there was little they could do about it; and none of them would wish to be without a representative on the Council of Faltha. The replacement from Deruys would arrive within two or three weeks - Deorc had said he had a strategy to deal with him -

while the other two would take months. By then, if what Deorc said about the Bhrudwan schedule was correct, they would be too late.

'She's a looker, that's for certain,' Vertensia said quietly, even wistfully. Piskasia, remembering his companion's unsavoury reputation, shuddered. 'I can understand why Deorc wants her.'

'Why, have you seen her?' Piskasia asked, curious despite himself.

'I have, and so have you. She's one of the northerners who came to accuse us. Remember her?

Raven-black hair, flames for eyes. A bit young, but the fresher for it. If I was to meet her alone in one of these corridors, I wouldn't be answerable for my actions.'

Around a corner they swung, and there, standing in the centre of the corridor, was Deorc, his expression unreadable. The Arkhos of Vertensia turned white with fear.

'You would answer for any rash action, my colleague,' said the Keeper of Andratan levelly.

'Therefore you will control yourself, for you know the penalty for foolishness, especially with what is mine.'

Vertensia had reason enough to fear. He had just made an enemy of the one man he needed to befriend. But his fear went beyond reason. There was a hidden power in the words this man spoke which turned his courage to water, leaving him vulnerable to every command or suggestion the man made.

'You will take no action against the northern girl, or against any one of the Ecclesia, or against any of their meetings. Let it be known they have the favour of the Council, and in them we see the hope of restoring Instruere to her former glory and pre-eminence amongst the cities of the world.' His voice was firm, steel-sharp, slicing neatly through any objections the two Councillors might raise. 'Then, my friend Vertensia, you will report to my office. I have thought of something to occupy those hands that otherwise might get you into serious trouble.'

Not even waiting for a reply, the handsome man strode off, leaving the Arkhoi alone to contemplate his will.

Mahnum and Indrett had agreed to face Stella with their concerns about her relationship with Tanghin. They had met with the girl in their room late at night. In the Ecclesia, late at night was the only time available for talking. However, the conversation was not going well.

'Will you take me back to Loulea?' Stella asked pointedly.

'Once Leith and Hal return, we will all go back to our homes,' Mahnum replied. 'You are our responsibility. Therefore you will come back with us.'

'Surely the Haufuth took me on this adventure?' said Stella. 'Is it not for him to say what should happen to me?'

'You are right,' Indrett replied. 'But it would be remiss of him to do anything other than take you home to your parents.'

'Unless I was married, of course,' she said.

'He would not give his consent.'

'Perhaps not, but the Hermit would.' Stella was angry now, and she used her answers as weapons to wound her friends.

'The Hermit is not your guardian. You are the responsibility of the Haufuth.'

'Not so! I have pledged allegiance to the fire and the Hermit, and I am one of the Blessed.

Neither the Haufuth nor my parents have dominion over me any longer.'

'So you would get married without your parents' blessing, and against the will of your village headman, simply to avoid returning to Loulea?' Indrett tried to control her fury.

'Do you doubt it? Instruere is the centre of the world, and right now is the centre of time. Here and now the fire is falling, and you want me to crawl back to the woods and become a simple village girl again? I was fashioned for more than that! I will not pass up the chance to change the world!'

'So you would disobey us all to follow your god?' Mahnum asked quietly, and everyone knew so much hinged on the answer.

'I would,' said Stella, 'and such is the Hermit's counsel. He says that of all our Company only I have shown the commitment necessary to carry the fire.'

'Then by your words is the movement itself condemned,' said Mahnum. 'The Most High would not require you to commit evil in order to achieve good. My mind is at rest. I have long felt uneasy about the strange tree the Hermit is growing, and now I can see some of its fruit, I will not partake of it.'

'It is evil only according to your outdated traditions!' Stella spat. 'I would give up my parents, my friends, even life itself, for a touch of the fire!'

'As long as it suited your purposes,' said Indrett angrily. 'You know nothing of true sacrifice. I have heard enough. From now on, I forbid you to see Tanghin without one of us present. I only hope you do not represent the best of the movement, or I will have to agree with my husband. Now, go to your room and think a while on what we have said.'

After she stormed from the room, the husband and wife stared at each other for a time. The meeting had not gone well, they knew it; and her decision hung in the balance.

Stella returned to her room in a dreadful state. How could following the Most High be so difficult? She had loved and respected Mahnum and Indrett, even before this quest began; but no more. She could see it now. They were tools of the enemy, the dark forces the Hermit always talked about, the spiritual Bhrudwo that had dominated Instruere for a thousand years.

Stuck in their traditions, their old ways of thinking, how could they be expected to see the new thing the Most High was doing? Of course they would counsel her to take the safe course, and to run no risks, because that is how they themselves had chosen to live. She should have seen it before! They had passed up life in the court of Firanes for the safety and tedium of the North March. Well, that was their choice, but they are not going to force it on me! I will take the risk! I will do something with my life! I will not return like a scolded puppy to Loulea, there to become the property of the village brute!

As the tears streamed from her eyes, Stella found herself pulling her pack out from under her bed. Hardly thinking about what she was daring to do, she packed a change of clothes and a few small personal items, then drew the ropes tight. She put on her dark travel cloak, then shouldered her pack. As it settled on her back she thought clearly for a moment, reminded of the quest and the danger they had all thought hung over Faltha; she laughed it off, reassuring herself about just how wrong they had all been. The future was one of peace, not war. And across the city Tanghin waited.

Her room was on the second floor of the tenement, and one or two of the others had not yet gone to bed. Intuitively Stella knew what she had decided to do ought to be done quickly, before she had the chance to reflect on it, but she was forced to wait the best part of an hour before all the doors below were closed. That time was torture for her, as she tried to resist her childish fears. What will my mother say? She thinks I'm dead anyway. What if Tanghin doesn't want me? Of course he wants me, none of the others do! And so on until she gathered the shredded rags of her fears, knitted them into something approaching courage, and quietly left the tenement.

The sun set in red flame, spreading an unearthly orange cast over the Brownlands. A black army, vast as thought, poured like ants on the march over the hills and hollows. In the van strode the Honour Guard of Andratan, thirteen thirteens, each robed in the garb of a Maghdi Dasht, the most fearsome of all Bhrudwan warriors. And at their head marched the Ancient One, the Undying Man, Black-heart, Kannwar One-Hand the Destroyer, the foe of the Most High.

As night fell the army halted, and the Destroyer went aside with his Honour Guard. There, on a bleak rock that served as an altar, they prepared the blue flame; blood and oil intermingling in a sacred bowl to allow the wielder of magic to stretch out his senses over thousands of miles. Tonight the Destroyer responded to the summons of his lieutenant Deorc.

The unwavering blue flame spoke in Deorc's measured tones. 'I have done as you commanded,' said the disembodied voice. 'I have divided the city against itself, and have set enmity in the hearts of the northerners. While some of them are temporarily out of my grasp, I wait with the trap baited, my finger on the spring. It only requires their return for the trap to be sprung. Then, my lord, the city will destroy itself just as Dona Mihst destroyed itself so long ago.'

'Will they return?' asked the Destroyer.

'They must. I have not been able to discover their purpose, but I suspect they are in league with the Arkhos of Nemohaim. They will return with strength to join their companions, but that strength will spring the trap and unleash Falthan against Falthan. I will save the Arkhos for you.'

'Good,' said the Undying Man. 'You have pleased me.'

'My lord, you have taught me all I know,' purred Deorc.

* * *

First Stella checked the basement, but Tanghin was not there; only a few groups of people remained, engaged in conversation. According to a man she knew only vaguely he had left some time ago.

She knew where his lodgings were, but they were a long way away and it was the middle of the night, in a city that nominally at least still observed a curfew, and in which murder was almost a nightly occurrence. Nearly then did she abandon her wild plan and return home; but she could not bear the imagined sight of those self-satisfied, superior faces issuing further instructions designed to hem her life in. So onward she went, down roads and through alleys that looked menacingly unfamiliar in the darkness.

Perhaps an hour later a sobbing and badly frightened Stella reached Tanghin's lodgings. In truth she had encountered nothing other than a scavenging dog, but it had unnerved her, and the girl who had defied the Bhrudwan warriors on the Roofed Road could find no trace of that courage now. To her surprise and fear two members of the Instruian Guard stepped out of the deeper shadows as she approached the tenement.

'What are you doing here?' they asked roughly. This was a wealthy area of town, they knew all the residents, and this girl was not one of them. Then, as she moved into the half-light, they both knew who she was.

'I'm here to see Tanghin,' she said, more timidly than she would have liked.

'Tanghin?' One guard looked at the other, and Stella thought she read surprise on his face; but it was gone in a moment, if it had ever been there. 'Tanghin's not here.'

'Where is he, then?'

'He's gone to speak with the Council,' was his unexpected reply.

'The Council?' Stella echoed feebly.

The guards had their instructions: 'If the northern girl comes looking for Tanghin, then bring her to me,' their master had said. 'That's right,' one said. 'Would you like to see him?'

'I'm going to find him,' said Stella determinedly.

'We're coming with you.'

'Why? I'll be all right.' But in truth she was glad they insisted. The company of the guards was better than facing the dark city night alone.

It took half an hour to make their way to the Hall of Lore. Patrols stopped them at regular intervals, and Stella was astonished at the extent to which the Instruian Guard controlled the sleeping city. She had assumed the fall of the Arkhos of Nemohaim, and the growth of the Ecclesia, had robbed the guard of its potency. At least that's what the Hermit had said, and Stella had seen few of them about for ages; but here they were, numbers undiminished. Why had the Ecclesia been allowed to grow unmolested if the guard still controlled the city? A strange sense of foreboding closed around her as they approached the squat black outline of the Hall of Lore.

Down cold, unlighted corridors they tramped, until they came to a half-open door. The guards stepped back, knowing something of their master's business and so uncertain as to whether to knock; but Stella rushed forward and stepped through the door.

There, in a small room, sat Tanghin, hunched over a burning bowl. From somewhere in the room came the sound of someone talking, the sound of stone on stone. Then, as she closed the door, the talking stopped abruptly and the blue flame flickered wildly. Tanghin turned and faced her.

It was Tanghin, but it did not look like him. It was as though a mask had slipped off his normally gentle face, revealing some hideous entity underneath, a dead man's face; or, Stella thought with shock, just like the Snaer mask in the Midwinter Play, implacably black, the caricature of evil.

The face spoke, as the features reassembled themselves into some semblance of the man she thought she knew. 'Stella,' it said, mouthing the word like a profanity. 'So you have come to me. I knew you would.'

She put her hands to her mouth and shrieked once.

'You fool,' he gloated at her as her world fell apart. 'You weak-minded fool. Your degradation is complete. Far from being one of the Blessed, you are cursed! Didn't you know I command people with my words? Haven't you heard of the Wordweave? You have done my bidding ever since I set eyes on you, and you will do so from now until the day you die. Come then!

Scream if you must! My master and I will enjoy your terror!'

But she could not scream. Anger, not fear, had risen to choke her; and in an instant of insight she realised that she had been a fool, but no worse. She had been tricked by an evil man, and her weaknesses had made her vulnerable to him, but she was not evil, she would resist this foul man with everything she had.

'Come nearer!' the man she had known as Tanghin commanded, and she was powerless to resist his hold over her. 'Look into the flame! My master would know you.'

As she stared, the blue flame reached out a tendril. Its touch was shockingly cold, unlike the warmth of the flame on the Night of Fire. Hold on to that thought! she told herself as the blue flame probed everywhere, everywhere, inside and out, unlocking her secrets, laying her bare.

Her nerves shrieked in agony at the touch, and she held on to her sanity only by centring herself on the yellow-orange flames of her dream.