The Sword of Sighs (The Age of the Flame: Book One) (15 page)

Sarah moaned, calling out from wherever she was.

Then she went under again.

Chapter Twenty

Sarah sat in the sun with her dad. It was late September, nearly October, and the leaves were falling from the trees. All around them, a carpet of red, gold, amber, and orange was settling in for the autumn, waiting for winter. The sun was sinking, turning the sky to azure, to violet, and then to night. A soft smell hung in the air, mulchy and pungent. Age and decay. Time was passing. Days were growing shorter, and nights, longer. They breathed it in and she felt it.

She was getting older.

School would soon be over. Her youth would soon be gone. Then there would be college, jobs, marriage, and children—things that slow life down, make it into something mundane. Tonight, though, here in these woods, there was still a little magic left in the air. Enough to light a small fire with.

A Flame that would burn forever.

Sarah rubbed her hands together, warming them over the fire. Dad didn’t seem to feel the cold. He never did. Still, that was boys for you, so Momma said. They never got cold fingers or toes. Sarah watched the bright buds of light that spat from the kindling. It’s not something you see every day, not with central heating being the norm, watching wood discolour, the bark curling and burning. It was a beautiful, natural sight, so alien to her city girl eyes.

“You all right, Moon-pie?” asked Dad.

“Yeah. Just watching the fire burn, Dadda.”

She only dared call him that when they were alone together.

“It’s something, isn’t it? No gas, no electricity, just wood burning away into nothing. Simple beauty.”

Sarah smiled at him, and he smiled back at her.

Tomorrow, everything would change. She was starting ninth grade—a year early too. Nothing would be the same between them after that. This was it, the dying hours of him as Dadda and her as his little girl.
When the fire goes out
, thought Sarah,
that’s it.
No more innocence, no more games. Everything becomes serious and something between us dies.
She sighed.

“You sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, I could do with a walk, though. I’m getting a numb ass sitting here.”

Dad took her hand and helped her to her feet. They spent a moment brushing leaves and grass off their backsides.
The city’s no cleaner than the countryside
, Sarah thought,
but there’s a difference to the dirt
.

“Okay, which way?” she asked.

Dad ruffled her hair, making a show of thinking, deciding. They were in a small oval clearing. Their tent was a leaning black cone in the fire’s leaping light. The tall trees of the wood made her think of long fingers reaching out of the earth, surrounding them in a friendly embrace, keeping the world out, just for tonight.

“Let’s go this way,” said Dad, walking off into the tree line.

Sarah ran after him.

In the woods, amid the trees, the darkness took a form unlike anywhere else in the world—a ripe, pregnant feeling of fullness with a void beyond in the usual conjurations of shadows. It was a sense of forever that Sarah did not want to leave behind. A shiver passed through her as she thought of the days ahead. So many days of adulthood compared to the precious few of childhood. None of the years ahead would have a place in her heart in the same way as this time, which was coming to an end. That was the truth underlying the memories, like sepia photos burning, blotching, and crinkling in the heart of the Flame.

She couldn’t see Dad up ahead in the dark, but she could hear him. His footfalls on the mulched leaves were not too far ahead. The trees were close, pressing in like rank and file, their branches and bows raised in stiff salutes. Boles shimmered with lichen. She could no longer see the stars overhead through the canopy of leaves. The footfalls ahead were moving, weaving, left to right, right to left. Sarah slowed, turning her head, listening, tuning in on Dad.

“Dadda, slow down. You’re going too fast for me.”

Either he didn’t hear her, or he didn’t care.

That thought stung, made her heart hurt.

She was running through the cold, wet woods now, breathing the soggy air. There was no light to guide her. Suddenly, all warmth evaporated from the darkness. It had been there for a while, warm, suffusing, but now it was gone, like the glow of the sun. It left her in eclipse, unable to find her way. Sticks cracked under her shoes, like bones. Shadows as old as the trees and the hills seeped out, older even than the warmth she had felt from the darkness. They were shadows that were not shadows—a Darkness That Was Not Darkness, something from before there were such things as Light or Time.

She could feel it, sluggish and silvery, moving in the air around her. It made her run harder. The air in her lungs turned bitter and the ache in her legs grew, spreading tiring webs of pain through her muscles. She would be too tired and weak to break free.

It might have Dadda!

She couldn’t hear his footfalls. The woods were more than quiet; they were silent. No sound was being made by any other thing. She opened her mouth and cried out, “Dadda!”

The sound was shattering, deafening. The trees, the soil, the starless sky all took a breath. The sensation was a sensual but sordid fluttering that wove through her body. A spell broken. A moment that had come and then passed on. She could see him. He was standing on the other side of the trees. She breathed out, hard. Had they come full circle? Were they back in the clearing where they had been camping?

No. This was a different place.

Dadda was there but not alone.

The woman with him was a strange angel in a dark dress. Sarah could see she was beautiful. She had the shape that, somehow, Sarah had been taught was the one boys and men wanted next to them every night. Perfume emanated from her, sweet and honeyed, but underneath it was a rankness, too—a salty stench that made Sarah stay away. Dad was not staying away; he was very close to her, his eyes on the woman who glistened in the risen moon’s light—glistened like an earthworm.

… like Dionin …

Sarah took a step forward, disturbing the grass, making it rustle. The woman froze. She had been cradling Dad’s chin, peering into his eyes. Her irises were the colour of autumn rust and her hair was winter grey, threaded with stains of old blood. Sarah could see the woman’s skin showing beneath her dress, taut mottled patches revealing bruised, scabbing flesh. There was grease in the woman’s hair, traces of grave soil, and white worms. She bared teeth at Sarah, teeth that had not eaten in years.

Dad turned to Sarah, but Sarah could not find her voice to speak to him. Sarah could feel her breath catching, knowing what she wanted to say to him, but knowing it would do no good. The woman was retreating, taking her rancour with her back to the grave, back to the tomb, back to wherever she had come from. Dad’s eyes were already following her when Sarah found her voice, freeing it from her throat.

“Dadda, I love you! Please don’t go with her! Don’t leave me!
Don’t go!
” Small, pathetic words of no consequence.

Dad was already following the woman into the bracken, parting the branches that slashed at his face. Sarah could hear him calling out to the woman. He wanted her now, not the love of his little girl. He was lost to Sarah. Back at the campsite, the small fire they had lit had gone out.

All that remained were white ashes and a little dust.

~ ~ ~

Sarah stood looking at where the woods ended, where the grass thinned and the tracks led home. Dawn was coming. The frost of morning was in the air. Her fingers and toes were cold again and there was no-one to warm them for her. She blinked tears out of her eyes.
Inside her, the Flame was still burning.
It would never go out.

“I’ll be waiting,” she said, “ever-lasting, ever-burning, like the sun.”

A sound, lonesome, empty and abandoned, came not from inside her, but from somewhere in among the trees.

Sarah walked away from the woods, alone.

Chapter Twenty-One

She came to with a jolt, banging her head against the flooring. Blinking bright stars from her eyes, Sarah got to her feet. She rubbed her bruised brow as she stumbled to the steps to look outside. “What happened?”

Jedda’s face was a mask. “We are up on a sandbar.”

“We crashed?”

“Yes,” Ossen said, shame-faced. “The spell was broken somehow.”

Jedda put a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “It’s all right. I’ll get us off of it.”

~ ~ ~

Jedda stopped pushing to wipe sweat from her eyes. Her lungs felt laced with fine hot wires. She leaned against the boat’s hull. It might have been easier from dry land, but the sand here was a grainy syrup. So little to brace against meant they were going nowhere fast. She had strength, but it was not enough. Pushing and panting, she kept trying, heaving at the boat, desperate to move it off the sandbar. Time was not on their side. The first luminous threads of twilight were weaving through the sky. A bitter chill filled the air. Night was coming and it would bring the Fallen One’s servants with it. Jedda’s muscles felt like over-wound cords, and her fingers were becoming clumsy from the cold of the water and the strain of the work.

“It's no good,” Jedda said between gasps for breath.

“Let me help you.” Sarah was leaning over the side.

Jedda made a face, gritting her teeth, stretching out her hamstrings and triceps. “Sarah, you can’t. You’re too weak.”

Too late. Sarah was in the water beside her, leaning in and pushing already. Jedda smiled, despite her worries, and did the same. Ossen watched them, unspeaking. His eye was on Sarah as she heaved her slight frame against the hull. Jedda could see how red her pale face was becoming, how shaky her hands were. A sudden tremor shook Sarah from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck. She swallowed a gasp.

Then Jedda cried out, backing away from the boat.

“What is it?”

“
The water!
It’s coming in. Look, it was around our ankles, now it is at our thighs.”

She was right. Jedda had been so long in the water that she’d gone numb. The water was rising up the sandbar, buoying the boat somewhat. Sarah nodded at Jedda, a slight glow to her eyes. Or was that a trick of the light?

“One last go. One last try.” She winked at Jedda.

They ground their teeth, gnawed the insides of their mouths, their bodies rigidly pivoting, their feet sinking deeper and deeper into slimy sand. Even with the higher water level, it felt like it was not going to work.

Then it happened.

A giving, a release, a letting go. They both gasped aloud as the boat slithered down from the sandbar into the water. The edges of the sky were night-white. Soon, there would be darkness all around. Jedda looked at Sarah. She was weeping and exhausted, but hand in hand, they clambered back on board with smiles on their faces.

~ ~ ~

“How did you survive?” asked Sarah through a mouthful of their evening meal—plain black bread, beef jerky, and water from their flasks. Jedda looked to Sarah and then to Ossen. He nodded.

“It was a golem that burned. Not me. Ossen made it out of the dirt and moisture that clung to the walls of the dungeon. There is enough filth down there to make a hundred golems. A few scraps of memory and words that I had chosen made it believable. Posing as a Sworn was the easy part because most people are too scared of them to look too closely, and I was well-trained in fighting by father before … he died.”

Sarah’s brow creased. “I’m sorry. My dad passed away as well. You miss him.”

Jedda nodded curtly. “I miss him, and I hate the woman who killed him. I mean to kill her too, whatever way I can. Ianna will die by my hand, one day.”

Silence followed Jedda’s words, and they ate the rest of the meal without another word.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sarah sat on the side of the boat as it steered itself downriver. Jedda was below, sleeping, and Ossen was at the stern. Sarah felt alone on the Path, even with them here. Even though she was dry and warm now, she still had not shaken off a chill from her struggle with the thing in the water. It was a cold worm, writhing inside her. Daybreak was painting itself over the remnants of night’s darkness. The waters of the river shone silver and white as the sun came up. Sarah knew it was beautiful, but she did not feel like seeing it right now. She was hollow, scraped out, empty. Three years of Seythe, away from her family, school, friends, and home. Could she ever go home again after all this? Live a life without fire and flames?

She did not want to go on, but she had to. She had to go on to the Fellhorn, across the mountains that seemed to grow on the horizon and which now took up the lower half of the sky. From inside the boat, she heard Jedda moaning.

At least,
she thought,
I’m not the only one here who has bad dreams.

~ ~ ~

Restless days went by in the boat. Sarah lapsed into sleep when she could, but the slightest creak or moan of the vessel brought her jumping awake. Odd, thatched bamboo huts lined the river. Encroaching trees, bent and old, crowded the banks like weary travellers desperate to quench their thirst. Their roots were warty, writhing toes sunk into the mossy water to drink deeply of the depths. More scattered houses could be seen through the trees, and occasionally a boat was grounded at the riverside. The houses looked empty and the little boats, unused. Decay and dank webbing decorated them, with lichen and mould settling into the damper resting places. The tree roots intertwined with the abandoned houses and boats, reclaiming wood that was once their own. The heavy air hummed with bugs, and Sarah and Jedda busied themselves swatting the little bloodsuckers away. Ossen ignored them. From the trees came a fibrous rustling. Sarah looked up, peering into the gloom. She saw nothing there. Nothing. But she still heard something—the rattling of hanging bones. Furtive eyes watched them from the sloping banks of the river as the sun sank away.