The Arcanist (20 page)

Finally, stealing himself for the pain to come as best he could, he let the fire touch him. That was something he had never done before. It was one thing that no spark or flame ever did. They controlled the magic with their thoughts, and they never let it – especially not the harmful magic – touch them physically. It was madness. It was so dangerous that it was unthinkable. But not for him, not this day.

The flames touched his tender, broken flesh, and it was as terrible as anything he'd ever known. It was as bad as when the torturer had whipped him, save that it was his entire back that burned and it wasn't just for a few terrible heartbeats. He would have screamed if he could have, even knowing that it might bring the gaoler. But for some reason the cries couldn't make it past his throat, which had seized up. Instead what came out was a gasp that wouldn't stop. An animalistic sound that he wouldn’t have thought a human throat could ever have made. He would have writhed in pain, save that all his muscles had twisted up into knots and left him unable to move at the first touch of the fire. He was locked in a rictus of agony. And he so wanted to stop. He wanted to do anything he could to end his suffering. But he couldn't. It was this or death. And he had to survive so that he could have his vengeance.

Somehow he bore it. He found the strength within his soul to endure, and he did. Edouard held it for as long as he could, counting the long torturous seconds as his back burnt, hoping that it would be enough, and when he smelled flesh cooking he hoped it had been. He didn't know. He couldn't see his back, and pain no matter how terrible was still just pain. He just had to hope that these few precious seconds of fire – seconds that had seemed like an eternity – were enough. He had to hope that the wounds if not completely closed over would be at least partly dried out and no longer weeping.

He couldn't hold it forever. He endured it for as long as he could but finally there came a moment when the pain drove away the last of his ability to concentrate and the fire failed. It was then that he let it go, and shortly after that he managed to start breathing again. Panting like a dog and wanting to howl like a wolf. Then, as he started gasping for breath, finally able to draw in the glorious air once more, he hoped and prayed that he had done enough. Because he knew he didn't have the strength to do this again. To endure the pain. Not for the moment anyway. Maybe never. The cure was as terrible as the flogging itself. And it had robbed him of every ounce of his strength.

Edouard lay there for a while, gasping as though he'd just run some great distance, and wondering if he'd just saved his life, or sealed his death. If he'd closed the wounds or burnt his back off. He had no way to know which he'd done. But at least he knew for the moment that he was alive. He held that thought to himself as he tried to restore some sense of order to his chaotic thoughts.

In time the worst of the pain passed, and he knew that it at least was over for the moment. He could breathe again. But there was still more to do. The demons of poison and disease had entered his flesh. They had got in through the open wounds, and though the wounds were now closed – he hoped – the demons had not gone. As everyone knew, there was only one way to fight them: Fever.

Normally a man would be placed in a hot bed with hot stones replaced hourly, and thick wrappings. Left to bake in his own flesh until the fever finally broke. But these weren't normal times and this wasn't a normal place. He had only one way to bake, and it had to be through his own fire. Again.

It took time for him to summon up the courage. Time for the pain from the first attempt he'd made to heal his wounds to ease back to a dull ache. But when it did he took a deep breath and pulled his fire to him once more. This time though, instead of letting it touch his skin, slowly and infinitely carefully he let it suffuse his entire being.

That was something he'd also never tried before, having only ever read about in the journals of some ancient and truly desperate sparks. People like him. It had to be done, and it had to be done perfectly. But it was tricky. Too much and he would die, cooked from the inside. Too little and the fever would continue to rage through him and he would die. But how much was too much? And how little was too little? That was the real question.

Little by little he raised his fire within him, and at first it was actually quite pleasant. The cell was cold after all, and a little warmth was a good thing. But it couldn't stay that way, and soon the warmth had become a fever all of its own. He began sweating, the water from his body leaking out through his skin in a desperate attempt to cool him. But it couldn't. He couldn't let it. And so the sweat quickly dried on his skin and he grew hotter.

So hot that his forehead felt like it was burning. So hot that his eyes were cooking inside their sockets. So hot that he wanted to faint. But he couldn't faint. He couldn't allow that. If he fainted he would die. Either from the demons ravaging his flesh, or from the fire being let loose within it as he lost control of it. So he bit his lip hard enough to draw blood and used the pain to keep himself awake.

Edouard kept the fire going. Second after second, minute after minute he kept his flesh simmering, working out how long it was taking by counting. A ten count, ten counts of ten, and then a hundred counts of ten. He kept going. He wished he knew how long it would have to run to banish the demons from his flesh, but he didn't. The only other spark he knew of who had ever tried this before him, or at least the only one he knew of who had survived and written it down in his journal, had counted to five thousand. An hour and twenty some minutes. But Edouard didn't know if he could last that long.

He was tired, so very tired. His body ached in ways it had never ached before. And his control was slipping all the time. Just little bits, tiny lapses in concentration, but enough to scare him. He never lost concentration. Not normally anyway. But then he had never been this sick.

Still, he counted. He endured it all, giving everything he could to his count, and when the light finally started leaving his eyes he knew he had done everything he could. He had nothing left to give. He was about to collapse and he let the last of the fire leave him before the last of the light left his eyes. And when it did and he started sinking into the comforting darkness he didn't know if his eyes would ever see the light again. But there was no choice.

All he had left was hope that the light might return. But that hope was more than he had had before.

Chapter Nineteen

It was during his second week in Bitter Crest that Marcus finally saw someone he actually wanted to see.

Up until then he'd seen many, many people. Too many. In fact he'd had a difficult time avoiding people. But then they were all people that he didn't want to see. Mostly they were the sick and injured, refugees and of course innumerable traders and hawkers trying to sell them anything they could.  There were people everywhere and none of them were his friends, the missing members of his family or his loyal soldiers.

It was only to be expected. As the destruction of Theria had progressed people had fled in all directions. To Bitter Crest, to the cities of Farring Cross, further afield again to Cloverlands and Bridgeton. People had fled in all directions. To anywhere where they had property or family, or even the hope of a job. Because of that he had no idea of where most of his friends were. Whether they were alive or dead.

As for his family, most were safe, but not all. Edouard could be dead. He had no way of knowing. And though messages had been sent to their father they'd had no word on whether he'd received the latest ones or not. He could be riding back even now, either to Bitter Crest or Theria. The Seven only knew what would happen to him if he arrived in Simon's stolen kingdom.

But there was another reason he didn't want to see the people all around him. They were a constant reminder of the terrible crimes his own brother had committed. Crimes that had destroyed not just one city and its surrounding lands, but also hurt the neighbouring realms as they had to deal with the refugees. Crimes that had shamed the house of Barris and the Severin family.

The streets were impossibly crowded and they were so busy with people that wagons and carriages could not pass. Every house and building was full, and every inn and hostel overcrowded. So much so that the city's systems were failing. Sewage and waste water ran down the streets. Fresh water was in short supply and many people were turning to ale, which didn't help with the orderly running of the city. Naturally a great many of the people who had flooded into the city were angry. They'd lost homes and families. They had reason for their anger. So there had been riots. Riots that couldn't be easily contained when Bitter Crest's own guards had to force their way through the overcrowded streets like all the others.

Accommodation was scarce, especially for a large family and they'd had to negotiate hard to get the top floor of an inn – the Basilisk's Stool – and then paid far too much silver for it. Thirteen people living in a single room with only six beds. But the only other accommodation they could find in the city were their family's warehouses and market, and they had never been intended for anyone to stay in them. They had no hot water, no beds, and no place to wash or cook. Still, it had nearly come to that.

The city was overflowing with people, bursting at the seams with refugees from Theria. Those who the mammoths hadn't driven out as they levelled half the city had then been sent running by the tree warriors. The sprigs.

He still didn't really know what they were – his brother had identified them as sprigs when he'd laid waste to them with those shockingly powerful weapons of his – but it was only a word. What he did know was that they were deadly. According to what he'd been told they had torn through his fellow guards as though they were unarmed. Weapons – anything short of a cannon at least – were nearly useless against them, though they didn't like fire a whole lot. Armour was even more useless. It just made the soldiers an easier target for those sharpened wooden spears of theirs that were supposed to be limbs.

In the end, when the city guards had bathed the streets in their own blood and their bodies were strewn everywhere, the attack had ended. Not because they had driven the enemy back, but rather because they had chosen to leave. Someone had called them back. Everyone agreed on that although no one knew who had called them or why they'd left. If they'd wanted they could have taken the city there and then.

Marcus wished he'd been there instead of at Edouard's holding, snoring his head off. Maybe he couldn't have done a lot – one man with a sword and a pistol wasn't an army – but he could have done something surely. He could have saved some of his comrades in arms. But instead he had done nothing, and when he'd turned up the following morning to discover a scene of utter carnage, it was to know an overwhelming sense of failure. That was a hard thing to live with.

Harder was the fact that he could not save his brother. That he had not even realised he had to. Not at first. No one had been able to tell him where Edouard was or what he was doing. Not that first day. All he had been told was that he was locked away with the rest of the Court and that the Court was in private session. When he'd asked he’d simply been told to help with the wounded by that insolent veiled soldier, Lockbar Wright. A man who claimed to be the aide-de-camp to Lord Julius, though Marcus now knew that for a lie. Lord Julius had died during the battle, cut down with the rest of his soldiers. He would never have hired such a man. But Marcus hadn’t known that at the time and so had obeyed his orders.

At no time had he been allowed to go to the Court so he could find out what had happened to Edouard. The Court was in session, meeting to discuss the crisis, and they were not to be disturbed. That had troubled him, but not for a moment had he thought that Edouard was in danger. He had simply assumed that Edouard was a part of that session and carried on with his duties.

Then, as that terrible day had progressed and he had spent it helping the survivors and carrying away the dead on wagons – endless wagons – he had heard the news that the king was dead, murdered in his bed chamber along with his entire retinue. The sprigs had got them all. Apparently the king had been sending him his orders from his death bed. Or so that false soldier had told him on his next visit.

The news had come like a body blow to the entire city. People had collapsed in the street at the news. They had cried out and wailed. He'd nearly done the same.

King Byron wasn't just a good king, a wise ruler and a fair minded man; he was loved by the people. For twenty years he had been loved, ever since he had assumed the throne from his ailing father. And for twenty years he had proven himself to be one of the people. His death was like losing a member of the family. And of course with the king's family also dead in the attack there was no obvious heir. No one to lead them. Prince Edmond should have become king in due course. Or if he had died, then Prince Drake. But they were both dead too and neither of them had had children. Therion was leaderless. It was then that the exodus had truly begun.

With no one to lead and protect them, and an unknown enemy knocking at their walls twice in a week the people had panicked, and Marcus couldn't blame them. No one could. In fact the word had come down from the Court that those who wished to leave the city were free to do so, and that they would be protected as they travelled. An unheard of command but a righteous one. Except that now Marcus knew it had only been a way of getting him and a few other high ranked soldiers and nobles away from the city for a time.

He had been assigned the duty of escorting one of the first parties to safety in the nearby cities and realms, ordered with another writ from the dead king. Apparently King Byron had demanded his service with his dying breath and that was never the sort of command Marcus could refuse. No matter that the king was dead. He had left that afternoon, before the sun had even set.

It was a not a long trip to The Golden Citadel of Farring Cross, barely thirty leagues north. On his own on horseback he could have done it in a day if he'd pushed it. But with nearly three hundred people in the group, many of them on foot, many also injured and all of them caught somewhere between hysteria and disbelief, it had taken three. Three long days as people had cried for their losses the whole way. That was a journey he hoped never to make again. And most of those he'd escorted would have had longer journeys yet to make. Onwards to whatever towns and cities were home to their families or friends.

But then had come the return and his horror had only grown. Riding hard all the way back to Theria, hoping to help with the defences or maybe with the rebuilding, it was only then that he'd discovered that his elder brother had assumed the throne. Actually he now knew that Simon had assumed it on that very first night. And then he'd locked away the Court until they had submitted to his rule. Now Marcus knew that the orders he had been given, supposedly by the king, had come from his elder brother instead.

How could that have happened? How could Simon have taken the throne? Marcus still had no clue, though there were rumours of writs and deals being made behind the scene. And secret deals were always his older brother's way. All Marcus really knew though was that he was sure it had something to do with the black robed advisor who'd arrived out of nowhere and who was constantly at his side.

Everyone who had seen him had spoken of him. The sarcastic, lying, and above all else untrustworthy, black robed advisor Vesar, who seemed to be everywhere. There was something wrong with the man. The black priest as they called him. Even though he'd never seen him Marcus agreed. There had to be something wrong with a man who wouldn't show his face.

But if there was something wrong with him there was something far more wrong with Simon. He had whipped Edouard half to death! His own brother! He had whipped dozens more the same way – and some of them had died. As Marcus had ridden to Bitter Crest with his family and a number of the other nobles fleeing the city, he had been told of the shocking crimes. Of the stocks being brought into the throne room. Of the floggings of nobles. Of the veiled soldiers pretending to be the royal guard, preventing anyone from leaving. And strapping anyone in to the torture rack if they dared to disagree with the pretend king. If Marcus had been there it wouldn't have been Edouard in those stocks. But he hadn't been there, and as it turned out, he had been deliberately left ignorant of the events of the night. That had all been part of Simon's plan.

Simon obviously hadn't been able to kill him. Marcus guessed that his older brother knew he couldn't have stood against him in a duel, and arresting him or having him executed would have cemented the opposition to him. He couldn't have dealt with that. Not then. Until he had more support he'd needed the guards to enforce his false claim to the throne. Whatever claim that might be. Simon had only a few soldiers loyal to him. These veiled royal guards.

Marcus suspected they were mercenaries, maybe even wanted criminals. It was a good reason to wear a veil and who else would take the coin of a false king as he seized the throne? The rest of the guards were either under Marcus' direct command or loyal to him as the captain of the Royal Guard. To kill him would have left Simon vulnerable. But neither could he let Marcus know the truth of what had happened. So he'd had him watched, sent him away at the first opportunity, and used those first few days to take control of the guards. He had brought in his own commanders. More mercenaries as far as Marcus could tell. Some of them cut throats.

In the days after that of course, the body count had risen. The mammoths and the sprigs had killed hundreds or even thousands.  But the deaths caused from these attacks could not match the numbers of soldiers Simon had killed from what he'd been told. Simon and his advisor had gone through the surviving guards with a hatchet, killing the officers one and all and leaving those who remained frightened and powerless. The men had swiftly learned that they had no choice save to obey their orders.

Likewise the heads of the various houses, trading concerns, guilds and orders had also been given the same brutal choice in his court. Swear fealty or face the stocks and the gallows. And thanks to the example Simon had made of his own brother, there was no doubt that he would do as he threatened. Maybe that was why he'd treated Edouard so abominably. To show the court his lack of mercy. But still some had resisted – and it had cost them. Many of the nobles' bodies now littered the fields too. Their heads were said to be adorning pikes in the royal garden. The rest had sworn fealty. It was what they needed to do to survive.

It was a coup. That much was clear. The only thing he didn't understand was how the mammoths and the sprigs had played into Simon's plans. Had they simply provided the opportunity? Or had he somehow sent them? Was he the evil mastermind behind these terrible attacks? Or was it the black robed advisor?

Whatever the truth Marcus knew they were answers he would never hear. He had returned from his escort duty to find Leona waiting for him at the city's broken gates, the rest of the family with her. And with the words of his little brother on her lips, he had had to listen.

Edouard was right, curse him. He usually was. Simon would come for them. The man had launched a coup and even now his position was precarious. If he fell he would be killed. And Simon would never let anyone stand between him and his survival. That included his family. The family had to be protected. That was his first duty. To escape the city with the rest of his family and get them to safety. So they had ridden hard that evening and the following morning they had reached the city. Since that day Bitter Crest had been their home.