Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series) (31 page)

(Diary of the Arkmage Los, one of the first female Arkmages to sit on the twin thrones. A note for the student - you may be confused by Los’ use of the year 1301. This is a common theme throughout her diary, as she always refused to use the new count. Los insisted that we should remember how long the humans have been free of the elves and their kin. As you know, at the end of the Scattered Kingdoms period, we began to count the years again, to signify a new age. For instance, I write this in the year 899, but by the old count, I am writing in the year 1899. Why did our ancestors do this? In hindsight, it wasn’t the smartest decision. We scholars never have it simple. Prepare for a lifetime of confusion.)

From the notebook of Arfell scholar Yaminas, writing in the year 899 (or 1899)

W
hiskers returned that evening. Possibly drawn in by the smell and the light of the fire on the shingly beach, he hovered in the doorway of the shack before entering. He sniffed the evening breeze and squeaked softly to himself. The inside of the shack was still an upturned mess. Farden hadn’t bothered to move anything. That afternoon he had simply slumped onto his straw mattress and passed out for a good few hours, leaving Loki to rummage around in his bare cupboards and examine his strange collection of carved candles.

The rat picked his way between the smashed furniture and broken floorboards. He paused at the edge of one particular gaping hole, near where Farden’s bed had been. Whiskers sniffed at the straw lying around the edges of the hole, and scuttled on.

Drawn by the muffled sound of a voice, Whiskers wandered to the back door and onto the sand-dusted rocks of the little beach. Two figures huddled around a little cooking fire, sitting under the stars and the fingernail moon. One stoked the flames with an old poker, the other sat a short distance away, running a whetstone along a very long knife. The man with the poker was talking in quiet tones.

As if he were eavesdropping, Whiskers sat for a moment on a nearby rock and listened to their mumblings, trying to make sense of the strange noises.

Farden had been glaring at his unwanted companion for a little while now. ‘Where did you get that poker?’ he asked, suddenly.

Loki looked up. ‘Was that a reply to my question?’ he asked. A moment ago he had asked if the mage felt any different after his foray into death. They had been having a one-sided debate ever since Farden had risen a few hours ago.

‘No, it wasn’t,’ he said stiffly. ‘Where did you find it? I don’t remember ever having a poker.’

‘I have a habit of finding things,’ Loki replied.

Another cryptic answer to grate on Farden. He ran the stone along his knife again with a metallic whisper. ‘Just like you found me?’

Loki raised his poker and his spare hand to the evening sky hanging above them. The stars were pinpricks in its black velvet blanket. ‘It’s my power. Some of us know the truth in everything; some of us gave birth to the song of magick; some of us usher in the weather and the seasons; some of us wield power like you humans wield a spoon, and what is mine? I lead the dawn.’

‘That sounds pretty important to me.’

For the first time since he met him, Farden saw a flash of emotion pass across the god’s face. Irritation, anger maybe. ‘A servant’s task. Ceremonial, rather than an actual duty. A menial chore passed to me when I was born, by an older god.’

At that Farden had to pause his sharpening. ‘
Born
? Gods are born?’

Loki looked up at the sky and shook his head. ‘Of course we are. Why do you think the stars constantly revolve and wander? Our war is still being fought, albeit slowly. I was born in Haven, in your tongue. The sky. This is the first time I’ve ever set foot on your earth.’

‘Well, that explains why you’re acting so oddly.’

Loki gazed at the waves and let the susurrations of the calm sea licking the sand fill the silence. ‘The others would not condone it.’

Farden smirked. ‘You sound bitter, Loki. Almost as bitter as me.’

Loki delved into the inside of his coat and brought out a fork. There was a pan sitting amongst the glowing logs of the crackling fire. Inside it was a fish stew that Farden had thrown together. All fins and heads and mouldy vegetables. Better than nothing. He needed his strength back for all the killing he had planned. Loki lifted its lid and poked at its contents.

Farden ignored him, plucking at the edge of his blade. He hummed satisfactorily and put the knife to one side. He reached for the next and began to sharpen that one. It was at that moment that Whiskers joined them. The rat scurried onto Farden’s lap, and the mage couldn’t help but yelp with surprise and joy. He hadn’t expected to ever seen the little beast again. He dropped his knife and stone and grabbed him. He held the rat up to the starry sky and watched him wriggle and squeak. ‘Old boy,’ he whispered.

‘A rat. It figures,’ muttered Loki. Farden didn’t hear him.

Farden cradled the rat on his shoulder and he curled up instantly with a contented chatter. Farden picked up his blade and went back to his honing.

The mage and the god sat there in silence for a while. Loki was content to poke the fire with the poker and shepherd the logs and coals into various positions. His line of questioning seemed to have died away. Farden was glad of it. Even if the man had not been an unwanted presence, his choice of conversation disturbed him; deep, invasive questions that Farden would grimace and scowl at. He feigned silence, but inside his tired and numbed mind, Loki’s questions rattled around like hot marbles.

After sharpening two more knives, Farden put Whiskers on the sand and got up to check the stew. Loki produced another fork from inside his coat. Farden snatched it away and poked the fish. ‘It’s ready,’ he grunted. ‘I hope you have a bowl,’ he asked, swiping his from the shingle near the fire. He had only the one. Why need any more, when his only house guest was a rat? Farden dipped the bowl into the stew and walked back to his spot. He tested the watery concoction with his tongue. It was a poor man’s stew, but he found himself ravenous, and quickly began to slurp despite the boiling heat.

Loki watched the mage eat. He looked neither dejected, nor angry. He simply reached inside his coat and rummaged for a few moments. Then, like a jester pulling a coin from an infant’s ear, he yanked a small wooden bowl from a hidden pocket and dipped it into the pot. Farden caught the movement in the corner of his eye. He scowled. Gods and their tricks.

The two ate in a silence. The sighings of the sea and the breeze were the only sounds. A lost gull squawked somewhere in the darkness. Whiskers nibbled on a spare bit of carrot. Farden grunted as he got to his feet. The broth had made his stomach churn. He collected his knives and headed back indoors. Loki didn’t look up. He was too busy examining each individual ingredient swimming in his bowl, nibbling and licking each one in turn.
Idiot
, thought Farden.

The air was cold inside the shack. Farden shivered and clutched himself. His hand grazed his rib wound and he grit his teeth with a growl. There was a shard of broken mirror on the floor. Farden scooped it up so he could grudgingly examine his reflection.

It was worse than he imagined.

Aside from the ugly wounds around his neck, his split lips, and his bedraggled beard, the fever had burnt the fat from his face. He looked horrifyingly gaunt. Farden lifted up his shirt and examined his ribs, which now resembled sharp, jagged fence-posts. The spear-wound was an ugly thing. Puckered like a pair of blood-soaked lips, the spear had pierced him just below his lowest rib, a few inches down from an ancient arrow scar. He prodded it and then almost doubled up with the resulting pain. Seria had done a good job of sewing the wound up. She had been a seamstress in another life, and that had saved Farden’s. For the first time in many, many years, Farden wished for his magick. He could have wiped his hand across the ugly wound and have his magick seal it. Farden threw the shard of mirror aside and slumped onto his bed.

What was it about the arrival of Loki that had rattled the mage so much? It was as though someone had picked a scab in his mind, making it ooze. That was how Farden thought of it. Fifteen years he had spent locking away his magick and his memories. It was why he had hidden himself away in a shack by a forgotten beach; why he buried himself in wine and mörd and nevermar and refused to get close to anyone; why he had been content to be a hired blade, so long as he was left alone. A scab for his wounds. Now Loki had come to pick at it.

What wound needed such a scab? Him. Farden himself. The mage was a curse.

Although his world had been shattered by Kiltyrin’s betrayal, it was still
his
world. He had let those people, the Duke, Kint, Forluss, Jeasin, this Loffrey bastard, into it and therefore the benefits, or the detriments, he had reaped were his and his alone. They were actors in his morbid little drama. Up until now they had been inconveniences and sources of coin. He had let his guard down and therefore brought this situation upon himself, but it was upon himself, and no other. That was why Farden could handle this world, this melancholy, immoral morass he had willingly sunk himself into.

But the god sitting on his beach was an intruder. An interloper who had come to pick and probe, and laugh like a jester while he did it. Loki was an ambassador for those he had hurt and been forced to leave behind, those he had cared about. Farden had left them behind to save them from further harm. Why in Emaneska were they trying to drag him back? The fools.

Bad decision after bad decision he’d made. Years of them, queuing up like the dead in his dream. Murder, betrayal, death, he had caused them all. He had even… and it hurt Farden to dig the thought out from where he and the nevermar had buried it… even brought a monster into the world.

He had burnt his bridges long ago, and now Loki had been sent to rebuild them. He was sure of it. Messenger or not, lesser god or greater, he loathed him for it. He would use whatever resources Loki had to offer, drown the bastards in their own blood, and then laugh as he sent the god packing back to the east.

Farden, like any disease, needed to be left alone to infect those who deserved it, and no others.

The mage rolled his knives up in a patchwork cloth and left them beside the lopsided door. He rummaged through the contents of an overturned box and found a splintered handle with a length of chain and a spiked metal ball at the end. It was a flail, and an old one at that, speckled with rust. Farden hummed as he felt its points with his sandy thumb. Rusted as it was, it was still sharp. That was what he needed. Sharp, brutal, ugly things to embed into skulls and faces.

Farden folded the flail carefully over his shoulder and rifled through a dishevelled pile of rumpled clothes with his toe. There was a cloak there, a dark red cloth one with a hole in the hood. Better than nothing. He found a spare belt draped over the stove’s battered chimney. It would do. His borrowed trousers were good enough, as was the shirt. His boots would barely survive the next few weeks. He only needed one.

As he turned to head back to the beach, Farden instinctively patted his wrists to check his vambraces. He growled darkly when he realised they weren’t there. The strange emptiness and lightness of his arms was made stranger by the feeling of the cold, curious air across his naked skin, where normally he would have felt the scales of warm metal, and the rush of their subtle magick.

The mage had forbidden himself from contemplating their permanent loss. He refused to entertain the thought that Kiltyrin could have sold them, or dispatched them to some far-off and secret corner of his duchy. It made his stomach clench every time it crossed his mind. He would have them back. Prise them from as many dead fingers as he had to. And quickly too. He tried not to pay attention to the strange aches that flitted across his joints and bones. Nevermar wasn’t the only thing he was withdrawing from.

Blood, there will be
, thought the mage, and not a drop of his. He had spilt enough.

Farden clenched his fists and contemplated strangling something. He spied a candle on the floor, one with a smiling, half-drunken face, and he crushed it with a vicious stamp of his sandy heel. Served it right, grinning at a time like this.

The mage donned the dark red cloak and went back to the beach, taking the rusty flail with him. The warm breeze welcomed him. Loki was still playing with his stew. Whiskers had made a bed for himself in the warm sand near the fire. Farden let the flail drop in the sand with a thud, drawing a glance from Loki. ‘That looks friendly,’ said the god.

‘I imagine it looks even better embedded in a Duke’s ribcage,’ Farden muttered. He sat cross-legged in the sand and began to scrape the rust from the weapon with the whetstone and a scrap of oiled cloth. Whiskers watched and sniffed.

It took him half an hour to make it battle-worthy. Farden tested the points again with his thumb and nodded. ‘Good enough,’ he mumbled. He swung it around above his head to test it. The weapon rattled and hummed as it spun in its deadly arcs. Farden brought it down on a nearby driftwood log, making Whiskers jump. The metal ball broke the log in two, sending a shower of splinters to float on the breeze. The mage smiled as he pictured what he might do with it.

Loki had finished his stew. ‘So what exactly is your plan? I assume you actually have a plan?’

Farden shrugged. ‘Go to Castle Tayn, start with Kint and Forluss, and then work my way to that Loffrey man and then the Duke. Kill them all, and make sure the last thing they see is my grinning face. Then I get my armour back and leave,’ he said. He suddenly thought of Timeon and Moirin, and Jeasin, and wondered how they would fit into all of this. He rubbed his forehead. ‘I’ll make the rest up as I go along,’ he added.

‘Sounds like a fine plan to me,’ replied Loki, dissatisfied. He couldn’t imagine the dour mage really grinning at anything at all. He wondered, not for the first time, what Evernia saw in him.

Farden clenched his fists once more, almost as if testing his fingers. ‘I’ve been waiting for this for years.’