Darkburn Book 3: The Gates of Kelvha by Tayin Machrie - HTML preview

Chapter 35

Leor gave the signal as soon as he saw the two new guards come marching round the corner by the northern bath-house. From the upper window of the empty warehouse where he crouched, shielded by his magic and looking down at the twilit street, he immediately threw the paper dart he had prepared. On leaving his hand it became a hawk – what variety of hawk, he wasn’t sure, for it was indeterminate; but it did the job.

As the strange hawk squawked its way to the top of the wall, one of the guards already positioned outside the bath-house looked up, although without really paying attention. It was not until the new pair had nearly reached the door that Leor set up his first proper distraction. He had been eyeing the opposite roof from his high window: now he loosened a tile and sent it sliding down with a swift rasping clatter, quickly followed by another.

An innocuous enough occurrence once you worked out what it was. But the initial effect was to make both arriving guards leap back as the tiles crashed to the ground close to their feet. They called out urgently to their fellows.

“There’s someone on your roof! How did they get up there?”

The two men currently on guard stepped out from their sheltered post at the bath-house entrance. Crossing the road, they squinted upwards at the roof.

“Can’t see anyone. Anyway, it’s too steep for a man to be up there,” said one at last. “Might have been a cat. Or just the building giving up at last. It’s gimcrack around here, the building work. Things just fall down when you look at them.”

As soon as he saw the men start to return across the road, Leor loosened another tile; and then three more, in quick succession. All four guards halted in the middle of the road in fresh consternation while the tiles smashed on the cobbles.

“The whole damn building’s falling down!”

“That’s the northern quarter for you.”

“Are you sure there’s nobody on the roof?”

“Can you see anyone?”

“It’s not the demon?”

“Nah. He’s all quiet. Hardly been banging around at all today. Still stinks, though. Got your nose-pegs ready? Let me get my cloak before I go.”

The guard was about to dive back inside the bath-house when Leor launched his next wave of noise into the dusk. This was a trick he had not tried before: it was the deflection of the sound of a drunken group of revellers who were wandering the streets a full half mile away. He had caught the faint edge of their cheers and shouts. Now he steered the sound so that it echoed through an alley only twenty yards from the bath-house door.

“Nobody’s meant to be in that section!” said the first guard indignantly. “Can’t they read the signs?”

“Drunks. Let’s give them a bit of a scare, shall we?”

The two new guards and one of the old ones drew their swords and ran towards the alley, while the fourth remained outside the bath-house. Leor had to work fast to deflect the noise of the carousing again; now it came from the street at the alley’s far end. He heard the clatter of the soldiers’ boots heading that way, while the fourth guard had another long squint up at the roof. Should he send another tile down on the man’s head? No. Too much.

The other three were absent for some time, looking for the non-existent revellers. Veron had had several minutes now in which to organise the release and killing of the darkburn. Leor wasn’t sure if that was enough; but now, to his relief, there came another distraction – this time one not made by him.

A small procession on horseback was arriving. It consisted of eight more soldiers, who flanked a pair of noblemen. In the swinging lamps held by the soldiers he recognised the features of Shargun, the old grey-bearded Kelvhan Marshal whom he recalled with dislike from the battlefield up north. The other man he had previously seen only from a distance: none the less, the broad, bullish figure and heavy watchful face were unmistakably those of Nerogun.

Leor shielded himself as thoroughly as he could, and leant out of the window as far as he dared. There he listened and observed.

“Guard?” demanded Shargun in his peremptory way. “Where’s your partner? Why aren’t you changing over?”

“The others are just checking out a disturbance, sir.” The sole guard outside the bath-house stood to alarmed attention. The three others came clattering back up the alley and halted in equal alarm on seeing the riders. One of them began to stammer out an explanation until Shargun rode forward and clipped him round the head.

“Open up the door, you fools. Let’s see the demon.”

“Yes, sir. Excuse me, but… but do you have your stones, sir?”

Nerogun held up his clenched fist. “Of course we do. We are not idiots.” His voice was full and resonant; the voice of a man used to being obeyed.

“Yes, sir. I mean, no, of course not, sir. The demon will be at the back of its enclosure, sir, as usual. That’s where it always skulks.”

Leor wondered whether to attempt another diversion before they went in. One more tile could give Veron a few more minutes. Before he could do anything, however, someone else appeared.

Precarious as his position was, Leor immediately froze, hanging half out of the window. He dared not move a muscle. He had shielded himself; but would it be enough?

It had been enough the other day. How strange that Adon, once so familiar to him, should now inspire him with such fear. For it was fear that he felt now. And regret. Dismay. Disgust.

And perhaps, almost, a little love.

Adon was on foot. He had appeared out of the shadows with such suddenness that it were as if the walls had given up some of their stone and re-formed it in man’s shape. Or wizard’s shape. Adon was himself today, not in any other guise: not quite so tall as Leor, nor so thin and ugly; better formed altogether. The lamplight shone upon a perfect, unmarked face, beautiful in its way, as a statue’s might be beautiful. Adon showed no signs of age.

“You will need protection when you release the thing,” he said. His voice was musical. A silken tenor. The various guards and soldiers stood yet more stiffly to attention, although one or two eyes darted from side to side as if in anxious fear. Leor knew how they felt. He kept himself rigidly still, although the strain on his arms, he knew, would soon make them start to quiver.

Do not quiver. Be as marble, as Adon is. Be invisible. Listen.

“We have the stones,” said Shargun.

“You will need more than those, if you are too close when you let it out,” the musical voice continued. A long arm waved gracefully from underneath the cloak. “I can provide protection for you until you are out of the fire’s way. You had better return quickly to the castle.”

“The fire won’t spread beyond the northern streets,” Nerogun said. “We’ll get the army to work on it before it can burn out of control.”

The head of one of the listening soldiers twitched. His glance shot over towards Nerogun.

The soldiers didn’t know about his plans, thought Leor; they didn’t know about his aim to set the darkburn loose inside the northern quarter. Will they get protection too?

Adon shrugged. “Very well. If you think you do not need my help…”

“We don’t,” said Shargun, so abruptly that Leor found his own hackles rising. Don’t speak that way to him, he thought, Adon will not like it. Do not displease him.

But Adon said nothing. He merely looked at Shargun, his head a little on one side.

“Well, open up!” commanded Shargun, turning to the guards. “We’ve wasted enough time. I’m not standing around here all night.”

The men hastened to unlatch and push open the heavy doors. Leor’s fingers clenched more tightly on the window-frame. Had he made them waste sufficient time?

Even as the four guards marched inside he realised that indeed Veron had done the job. For he could no longer feel the darkburn’s aura. From his post up here it had been faint but ever-present, like a distant continuous noise: a pall of misery and dread. Its disappearance had been camouflaged by the arrival of the soldiers and then of Adon. Leor had been distracted as thoroughly as his opponents.

But now the darkburn was destroyed. He had no doubt of it.

And a minute later everybody knew – for a guard came bursting from the bath-house, babbling about the missing demon, which must have flown out through the roof and set the tiles all tumbling. Shargun dismounted, struck the man into silence and ran in. Nerogun followed him more ponderously. Adon’s head turned slowly as if to look up and down the street.

Angry voices echoed from the bath-house; and Nerogun came striding out again, ahead of the others, and snapped out orders. His own troop of soldiers at once surrounded the four hapless bath-house guards, corralling them up against the wall.

“Kill them,” said Nerogun tersely.

“Sir.” But the captain to whom he had spoken did not move. “Now, sir?” Leor thought he recognised the man from up north. A tough, hard-faced captain. He bore the same insignia on his helmet as the bath-house guards: they were of the same regiment.

“When else?”

“Sir. If the demon has truly disappeared, perhaps an investigation would be–”

“Captain Amerrun, are you questioning my orders? Kill these guards. The thing is missing. The outer gate was securely locked. They have betrayed us somehow, through either corruption or incompetence.”

“Sir,” said Amerrun with the faintest note of protest. “Perhaps if the demon–”

Nerogun drew his sword with a swift screaming hiss of metal, and the captain fell silent. Swinging round, Nerogun plunged his blade into the nearest captive. The man did not die: he collapsed back against the wall with a strange gasping sound, hands grasped to his abdomen. At once the captain drew his own sword, stepped forward and with one decisive stroke through the ribs dispatched the man.

“And the others,” said Nerogun. “Unless you wish your whole troop to die instead.”

He and Adon watched the captain kill the three remaining guards, Adon with a faint, bland smile upon his lips. It seemed to Leor that the captain locked eyes briefly with each prisoner before giving a swift sword-thrust to the heart. Each man took no more than a few seconds to lapse into unconsciousness. The last man began to cry and plead: then the sword-thrust was given, and he died the most swiftly of them all.

It was cleanly done, if such a slaying could be cleanly done. But Nerogun frowned and pouted, as if he would have preferred more noise and blood, before saying, “All right. Now stand aside. We wish to consult.”

Captain Amerrun and his men retreated down the street, well out of earshot. Amerrun’s face might have been carved out of stone.

Shargun, who had not watched the killings but had glowered at the ground, said, “Well, so much for that! The thing is gone. It’s plainly nowhere in the city or we would have seen the smoke by now. We may as well go home.”

“Why?” said Adon. That musical note. It made you want to listen to him even if you did not register the words.

“Isn’t it obvious? We’ve lost our weapon,” said Shargun impatiently. Oh, that is not the way to talk to Adon, Leor thought. It will anger him just as it would me.

But Adon replied smoothly without showing any annoyance. “Nobody else knows that.”

“Somebody knows,” said Nerogun. “Somebody ordered those guards to let the darkburn out.”

“But for that very reason, somebody will not say what they know.”

“Who could it have been?” growled Shargun.

Nerogun compressed his mouth and did not answer. He does not like to admit ignorance, thought Leor.

“When you planned to release the darkburn,” said Adon in a pleasant tone of enquiry, “whom did you intend to blame?”

“Incompetent soldiers,” said Nerogun.

“But they are your soldiers.”

The Post-Regent shrugged. “I will have that troop and their recalcitrant captain put to death later on.”

“That would be wise, especially since they now know of your plan,” said Adon in his melodic voice.

And that is your fault, for you told them, thought Leor in an agony of mind. How many lives would Adon waste so carelessly? But no, Adon was not careless. He was careful in destruction. All this was deliberate.

Adon was still speaking. “Meanwhile, you do not have a darkburn; but you still have fire.”

Shargun stared at him. “You mean that…. we can still fire the city, and blame the darkburn for it?”

“Indeed. And you can probably find someone more worthwhile to blame for its release, in addition to your soldiers,” said Adon casually.

“Somebody else,” said Nerogun with heavy deliberation. He rubbed his chin. “Yes. Yes, Melegan, the Keeper of the Keys. He must have held the keys to all the city buildings, must he not? Until he carelessly lost some of them. Or allowed them to be stolen. Yes. I see it now. This is Melegan’s fault.”

“Good,” said Adon in his light voice. “Shall I fire the buildings now?”

“Can you?”

“Easily,” Adon replied. “Just watch.”

He made no gesture. He did not even raise a hand. He merely seemed to breathe out gently – perhaps he murmured a few words – and Leor heard a hiss and crackle. He could not see where the fire had started, however, for several seconds; when he abruptly realised that it was above him. It was in the roof.

He swung himself back into the room and hoped that his shielding had not slipped. But Adon had not even been looking at the building he had fired.

Leor ran down the narrow stairs and through the back of the warehouse, where he shook the hunter awake. The man – Zan, he was called – should have been on sentry duty but instead was snoring on a pile of sacks.

“Fire,” said Leor tersely. “Get out of the building. Hurry! We need to spread the alarm and warn anyone in its path.”

They ran out of the back door together and looked up at the flames curling around the roof. These did not act like normal flames; for they were heading downwards, creeping down the building towards ground level rather than leaping for the sky as would normally be expected. The walls, which were built of wood, were already catching fire faster than seemed likely.

Zan stared at the smouldering building open-mouthed. “What’s going on? Did Veron not reach the darkburn in time?”

“This isn’t the darkburn,” Leor told him grimly. “Go and wake the neighbours! Tell them to get out!”

He pushed Zan one way while he himself ran the other, to pound at the door of the neighbouring building. For this street, unlike that of the bath-house, was populated.

“Fire! Fire!” he yelled before anyone even answered to his banging. But elsewhere people were already trickling out into the streets to look up and point. And then, as one, they screamed and began to flee in panic: for across the road, a whole line of roofs flared up in a roar of sudden orange flame, as if an invisible firedrake had just flown over and fire-bombed them.

Zan gave a strange half-groan and ran off to pound at more doors. Leor was about to do the same when he stopped to think.

Adon would destroy this city by magic, he said to himself. May I not use my powers too, to save it? What better cause for magic could there be? I abjured my wizardry. But now, if ever, is the moment for me to reclaim it. I am a wizard. What else am I for?

He raised his head to study those unnatural flames that poured down the walls from the burning roofs, like streams of fire. What could he do to put them out? Could he pull rain from the clouds?

Perhaps, if there were any clouds; but the sky was almost clear apart from the growing billows of smoke that obscured the stars. And he could not draw clouds in instantly from nowhere.

No rain. But try the wind.

So, just as earlier on he had gathered sounds from a distant alley, now Leor set his mind to gather the wind that swirled in the streets, and direct it at the flaming rooftops.

A gale hit the roofs with a screaming wail. At first he thought he had made a terrible mistake, for he was appalled to see the flames on the nearest rooftop merely growing in size and dancing wildly; but then, to his relief, they spiralled upward in a kind of funnel, and then went out.

Starve the fire of air – that was the secret. As another roof burst into flame over to his left, he tried to do the same again, sucking the air from the fire and funnelling it upwards. It worked, after a fashion; but it was not easy.

And even though he could put out those nearest fires, it was only one at a time, and he saw them starting up again mere minutes later. Meanwhile, the walls were still burning wherever they had caught: and the scattered glows he glimpsed further away indicated that fire after fire was continuing to break out across the whole of the northern quarter.

Leor abandoned his attempts to harness the wind and hurried down to the crossroads to get a better view of what was going on. The streets were filling up with people, some in their night-clothes. While many ran away from the blazing buildings, others ran towards them, crying out names in horror, their shrieks and shouts punctuating the growing roar and snarl of fire. The air was full of sparks and drifting ash. A man ran past him carrying a bucket of water, a pitiful sight.

Leor put his head in his hands. He could not bear the thought of all the lives that would be lost; and he was powerless to stop it.

Then he raised his head.

“Not powerless,” he said. “I will not allow this. I will not allow Adon to do this.”

He had no bucket, but there was a whole river nearby. It was the sluggish watercourse that ran across the city, and drained the northern quarter beneath the recently repaired bridge.

Now Leor fixed his mind upon this river. He had raised the darkburn in its iron cage from underground with what had seemed like ease. Why should be not raise a river? He felt across the streets for its heavy cold fluidity, trying to grasp it with his mind. It was slippery and unwilling to be grasped.

Finally he thought he had it. He willed and dragged a mass of water slowly up into the air. It did not want to be dragged. When he bid it take itself across the houses he felt it start to break up, and had to command it with increasing force to stay together while he made it move. He saw the quivering mass of water pass just overhead, spurting water across the street like a leaky ceiling.

Nobody beneath it seemed to notice. The airborne load of water was just a clump of darkness in the darker sky: all eyes were fixed upon the orange flames that sprang up in new places every moment, dazzling the senses.

Leor directed the mass of water to hover over the fiercest of the flames before he let it go. There was a shock of relief in doing so. The water dumped itself upon the blazing building: the flames disappeared, tried to revive, and then lapsed down again, to groans and gasps from the nearby crowd.

But there were more flames shooting up elsewhere. He returned his mind to the river and determinedly began to raise a second mass of water.

This time people noticed what was happening. Of course nobody connected it with him: he was just a gaunt old man standing transfixed at the crossroads, staring like everybody else and getting drenched like everybody else as the water passed tremblingly overhead, dropping clumps of showers. The water stank. He dumped the remainder of it on another burning rooftop, and returned his mind to the river to begin again.

But it was hard work. Very hard. He was dismayed at the diminishing of his powers. Maybe he was too long out of practice; but in truth he had never attempted such a feat before. The next unwieldy bulk of water quivered and then broke up in a spate of heavy downpours before he could steer it where he wanted. Leor despaired. He could not put out all these fires by himself – there were too many.

With relief he saw more conventional help arriving. A line of clattering carts drove smartly up: two halted close by, and Kelvhan soldiers jumped out of them, equipped with flails and beaters. These proved effective against the smaller fires that were springing up abundantly in the litter of the streets, although the soldiers did not venture into any of the burning buildings.

But now more aid was coming, in the form of the Riders of the Vonn. For a small battalion of them, led by Ikelder, came running along the street on foot, with wet cloths wrapped around their faces. They split into pairs, hastening to enter doorways and conduct the people out.

Leor wondered if he ought to do the same; but he could be more effective as a water-shifter. So he had another attempt at lifting a fresh load from the river – not so much this time – and managed to convey it to a smoking house across the road. There he let it drop, somewhat indiscriminately: two of the Riders got soaked, along with the four old people whom they were helping to get out.

One of the Riders came striding over to him. It was Maeneb; her hair was sodden.

“Was that you, Leor? Are you trying to poison us? That’s sewage water!”

“It’s water,” Leor said. “I’m trying to save you.”

“Don’t bother.” Maeneb spoke with unusual fury. “You didn’t start the fires as well, did you?”

He was shocked. “No, of course not! That was Nerogun, when he failed to release the darkburn into the city.”

“He what?” Maeneb stared at him in disbelief. “Why would he want to do such a thing? To set his own city on fire?”

“I don’t know. But he didn’t succeed in freeing the darkburn: so Adon started the fires for him.”

She shook her head in horror and disbelief and ran off to another smoking building. When Leor saw her enter, and Durba run in after her, he was terrified on their behalf. Despite Durba’s battle-shock she seemed to have no fear of being devoured by flames. Yet those wooden buildings could collapse in minutes.

Behind him, as if to prove the point, he heard the crash and rumble of falling rafters. He reached for another water-load – a smaller one again – and practically threw it at the tenement that the two Riders had run into.

Everywhere that he could see was now ablaze. There was only one building in the whole long street before him which was not on fire. It was the Temple of Borgun; and he realised that a priest was hurrying from its doorway with a bucket, and beckoning the stricken people in.

“You’ll be safe in here,” he called. “We are stone and will not burn.”

A few people limped towards its doors; but one man hurrying past shouted out something about demons and wizardry. They all ignored Leor, who leaned against the wall, apparently resting, while he tried to summon up the strength to lift more water. Who knew that it was so heavy and so uncontrollable?

Just like the sea, he thought.

Of course. The sea. What I need is not rain, but a tide.

He felt for the river again. But this time he did not attempt to lift a mass of water in the air. Instead, he sent the watercourse’s sluggish flow pushing and surging against its banks, to and fro, to and fro, as if he were rocking some massive serpent in a cradle. He could feel the water sway and rebound from side to side. He pushed again, and to his surprise felt suddenly the muscular force of its release as it overflowed the banks in a heady rush.

In another moment he saw the dark tide flood across the street in front of him. People were suddenly wading ankle-deep: foul water lapped at Leor’s boots. Within seconds the flames on the ground floors of the buildings opposite were fizzingly extinguished. A few men seized buckets and began to ladle up the water and throw it on other fires.

Leor pushed again at the river, feeling for that heavy swarming flow, encouraging it into slow rebellion so that it overwhelmed its banks a second time. Another surge of murky, stinking water rushed through the streets, riding on the first, refuelling the flood. More fires went out.

When he readied himself for the third push, he knew how to do it. It was all about the channelling, the directing of the force. Let it flow within the river. Let it run with the tide.

Something was crowing inside him. He beat it down – for this was not the time for selfish triumph – but it was there. His powers were not diminished after all. Rather they had grown.

He thought, I am become as the moon is. I have governed the flowing waters: I have ordained their tides; I have created this small but marvellous sea.