Dreams of Darkness Rising (18 page)

“What did you do?” Emelia asked.

“What? How dare you address me thus! Etiquette demands you say only ‘m’lord,’” Uthor said with a splutter, wine and spit flecking his chin.

“You said to yourself when you came down the corridor, ‘What have I done?’ The day she died. The day my friend died. Well, m’lord, what did you do?”

Uthor looked astonished, partly at the impudence of a housemaid addressing him thus and partly at the inference of her question. He surged from his seat, his goblet falling to the wooden floor. Emelia stepped back to maintain some distance between them. The wine spread in a pool on the floor and an image of Sandila crumpled and broken on the cobbles sprang unbidden into her mind.

“How dare you talk to me. I have no idea what you think you heard but I should think very, very carefully about the things you say.”

He began to move towards Emelia, his normally blotchy face red and livid.

Emelia smoothly stepped back, not through fear but from a desire to speak her mind.

“Oh, I’ve thought carefully m’lord. Every night I think as I lay in bed. I think of my friend, with a child in her belly, laying on the uncaring cobbles. I think of what it must have been like as she fell towards her death. I wonder what she felt as her body smashed on the stones like an unbalanced pot. I think how in Torik’s name she could accidentally fall over the battlements when she had the best balance of any of us girls. Then, master Uthor, I think how unjust it was that you had only yourself to confess to.”

Uthor’s face darkened. “I know you. Yes, I know you. You were that little whore’s friend. You’re the one I saw in Cheapside, all over that drunken sot. Is that how you servants earn an extra crust? Is it? On your back, in some alley, down in the slums?”

Emelia slapped Uthor with all her strength, the sharp crack echoing. He staggered, clutching his face, a look of horror written across it. Then he lunged, grabbing her wrists and shoving her back into the table that abutted the inner long wall. Emelia gasped in pain as the table edge struck her hip and she was pressed off-balance with Uthor’s weight.

His leering face dominated her vision, his dilated pupils glaring into her own eyes. The wine on his breath smelt sickly sweet as he panted, excited by the struggle with Emelia, who was two stone lighter though nearly as tall. Emelia felt a sudden surge of fear at what this evil man may do to her in this lonely room and her feet desperately tried to gain traction on the floorboards. His hand jumped to her throat and as she struggled she felt her pendant snap and clatter back onto the table.

Uthor pushed towards her face, mouth opening to kiss her. “I recall when she wriggled under me like this. Give up and shut up. If you breath a word I’ll kill you.”

“Like you did Sandila? I don’t fear you and I don’t fear death. I’ll be gone from here soon enough and we’ll see what the mages have to say when I tell them.”

“And what would they care,” he said, spittle flecking Emelia’s face. “They’d not believe a little harlot like you. And don’t think you’re safe there—I know enough people in the Enclave to arrange a little fall of your own.”

A roar exploded through Emelia, surging from deep inside like a tsunami. Nine years of frustration and anger; nine years of fearing to tread the wrong way; of not knowing whether you were valued more or less than the hounds that bayed in the garrison in the evening, burst the dam of her control. She shoved forward with all her might yet this in itself may not have been enough save for the pent up rage flowing from her hands.

The air rippled, as if a heat haze had leapt from the fire and interjected between Emelia and Uthor. He was lifted from his feet and flew across the chamber, like a leaf in the autumn winds. His black and silver clad body crashed into the table, sending the two wine bottles smashing around him and drenching him in red liquid. For an instant Emelia thought she had killed him but then he moaned and began to try sit up.

Panic came upon her as she moved sideways towards the door. What in Torik’s name had happened then? How had she managed to send him sprawling fifteen feet across the floor? A mixture of elation and fear pulsed in her arteries and she realised with a jolt that she could have slain this man. Indeed she still could whilst he lay on the floor.

He’d deserve it too, Emelia
, Emebaka snarled.

The door burst open and three figures entered the chamber: Lord Talis, Lady Heler and Sarik. They looked in astonishment at Uthor trying to regain his feet and Heler strode forward to help him.

“What in Coonor’s mighty spires has happened to you, my darling?” Heler asked.

“My lady, I can explain,” Emelia said.

Lady Heler flushed and whirled, glaring at Emelia.

“Silence! I care not to have our noble ears muddied by your common utterances. I spoke to my son and your lord. You will wait there until I ask you.”

Emelia blushed and began to curtsey, then stopped herself.

“I’d suggest that it’s your filthy son that muddies this room, my lady.”

Talis, Heler and Sarik all gasped simultaneously as Uthor began to regain his feet.

Lord Talis, his features stern, stepped forward.

“That is enough, young lady, you will remember your place. Sarik escort her to the kitchens at once and be thankful it is not straight to the yard for the sting of the birch.”

Sarik took Emelia’s arm firmly and pulled her from the room.

“Thank Torik you’re on your way tomorrow,” he said in a whisper. “Few cross the Jackal and live a happy life thereafter.”

Emelia was shaking with the adrenaline as they left the room and her eyes were moist with tears. There was no choice now: she would have to leave tonight.

Chapter 7    Cutting the Cord

Windstide 1920

At night the kitchen was a peaceful place, albeit only for the four hours in the smallest hours when even the bakers had to rest. The silvery moonlight from the waning Eerian moon mixed with the blue of the Aquatonian to give the interior the quality of frost. Two kitchen boys were curled together under a yarkel blanket for warmth. A small mouse nibbled at the crumbs that lay on their clay plates, the remnants of their supper.

Emelia crept across the cold flags, considering the fragments that remained of her own life at the Keep. She had been almost disappointed that Mother Gresham had not beaten her for her earlier affront; somehow the pain would have fired her fury all the more. Instead she had looked at her with eyes wracked by sorrow. In a flat voice she said that leaving the Keep would be punishment enough and that if she tried such tomfoolery at the Enclave she’d be living on a lily pad in the Arch-mage’s garden. She had then told Captain Ris that one by one all her girls were going. Gresham had solemnly appraised Emelia, commenting that the girl she had raised had gone that day at the carnival, melting into the crowds never to return. Emelia had skulked to pack her scanty possessions in the girls’ dormitory, the bitter words stinging deeper than any birch.

Yet in a sense Gresham’s comment was true. After all, the old Emelia—a young girl obedient and courteous—would have never eased herself out of her cot at high moon and snuck through the kitchens with escape in mind. She had kissed Abila with tears in her eyes, hoping perhaps one day to see her again but knowing in her soul that it was not going to be possible.

In the corner of the kitchen Torm was asleep, his head resting on a pile of rags. Emelia hesitated to take a final look at him. His bruised face was peaceful and his ankle was securely strapped.

His eyes flicked open and for several seconds Emelia and Torm just stared at one another.

“Heard what you did,” he said in a low voice. “I still think sticking him would have been better.”

“Perhaps, though my discretion has meant I’m still here to try escape and not in a deep cell in Iyrit Crag,” Emelia said. “One day we’ll get justice.”

“I’ll pray for that day. Perhaps he’ll get drunk and fall off a griffon.”

Emelia knelt by Torm. Her hand touched his swollen face.

“I’d take you with me if I could, I …”

“You’ll have a far better chance if I stay slumbering on this cold stone floor. I would slow you down and get you captured. Two servants on the run? No chance.”

“One day, I’ll come back for you.”

“You’ll do no such thing. I’ll be nipping at your heels like a guppy in no time. You keep checking over your shoulder, Emelia, and one day I’ll be there.”

Emelia stood and secured her satchel.

“I’ll look every day,” she said.

“About what I said earlier. I’m sorry.”

“I know. Bye, Torm.”

She turned and slipped across the kitchen towards the steps. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Torm roll towards the wall.

Emelia reached the stone stairs that led to the levels above and paused. A vision of her younger self, running under the wood tables with Sandila and Abila came to her, a warm orange spectre in the silver blue backdrop. A lump sprang into her throat and she had to choke back a tear as she turned and left that child behind forever.

Although little thought had gone into this beyond the encouraging tones of Emebaka there was no doubt in Emelia that it was her sole option. She could be a servant no more; something had switched inside her. There had been an awakening, an epiphany that something about her was different, destined for another path in life. She could not sit around counting the wasted days until she came of age.

A paralysing surge of fear stopped her in her tracks. She wavered on the steps, looking back down to the kitchen.

I am on a threshold
, Emebaka,
if I take another step I know I won’t go back.

What holds your legs frozen to the spot then?

I...I am terrified. I’m no longer to  have the safety of the Keep and with each passing second I doubt that the Enclave is a place of security for me. Uthor has his blood-stained reach into the place and I keep thinking of the dark sorcerer talking about the Arch-mage.

That may all be supposition and lies though.

Aye, but something has happened to me, Emebaka. Something awakens, like a long dormant dragon. I feel it growing within me. I’m changing somehow—doing impossible things. If the Air-mages find I can hurl grown men across rooms like rag dolls and fall through solid walls do you think they will ever let me go? I’ll not be spending six years at the Enclave. No, I’ll never see the light of day again
.

It required more effort to take that step than anything ever had in Emelia’s life before. Yet as the first step forward lifted her up the stairs, the second rapidly followed and before long she was vaulting up the stairwell.

Her satchel bag was crammed with bits of bread and cheese, enough for perhaps a week. Then she would be forced to steal to live. Could she become a thief?  She pondered this as she slipped up the stairs, keeping flush to the wall. For a moment this afternoon she could have been a killer she had been so enraged. So yes, indeed, she could steal if she was required to. It would take weeks and weeks to traverse the farmlands of Lower Eeria and winter was coming; her timing could not have been worse. Yet staying in the city was a poorer option. Escaped servants rarely had pleasant lives; they invariably gravitated to Cheapside and the horrors it held for young girls.

She had reached the ground floor now, where the main barracks of the garrison was located. This was the only real option for exiting the Keep and was, of course, always guarded. None the less she had heard from some of the older girls that at this hour the guards were fairly somnolent and with Engin’s grace the opportunity may arise for her to slip out into the upper city. Then perhaps she would hide in a cart bound for the countryside and then away.

Emelia’s hand drifted to her pendant as she began to creep from the landing into the ground floor’s corridors. She reeled in horror, her long fingers scrabbling at the bare skin of her neck.

It was gone.

She almost screamed in frustration with the realisation of where she had lost it. As Uthor had grabbed her neck, seconds before she had somehow thrown him across the chamber, she had felt it snap. She punched the wall, the hard stone sending pain lancinating through her fingers. Tears welled once more and she bit hard on her lip to stop her cries of disappointment and pain.

Emelia stood frozen, like the ethereal kitchen she had only just left, as she weighed her options. The sound of voices from further down the torch-lit corridor made her mind up for her and she swivelled and padded back to the stairs and upwards. She trod the same wide steps that she had hours before as she had gone to confront Uthor. The irony was not lost on her as she rapidly adjusted her make-shift plan. Perhaps she could leave the Keep from the roof, ascend to the city wall and then seek a way down the towers or steps? The idea seemed unappealing given the fate of her friend but roaming the whole building was surely an invitation to being discovered.

Emelia approached the landing of the fourth floor, slowed and began to creep, making as little sound as the ancient stones around her. This floor was often guarded and she needed to make some assessment as to the wakefulness of its sentry. Could she fabricate some excuse to pass a guard? Some yarn about why she roamed the Keep at an hour past high moon?

You really do have the Moon’s malady
, Emebaka chuckled.  She smiled despite herself, easing around the corner of the stairs.

The landing was vacant, its only occupant asuit of armour. Perhaps Engin was visiting the Keep tonight to pay her back for all the misfortune of the last few weeks. Emelia entered the corridor, which was lit by eight torches. She passed the old tapestry that covered the alcove, and out of the corner of her eye saw a slight bulge in the cloth at the base.

It was the tip of a boot.

She bit her fist to suppress her scream. The boot was flat to the floor as if its owner was sleeping. Her hands trembled as she pulled the tapestry to the side.

Crammed in the alcove, between the stacked benches, was the bound figure of a guard. Emelia’s immediate thought was that he was dead but then she saw the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath his chain mail hauberk. He was expertly tied with rope and had a thick gag in his mouth, secured by a knotted cloth. An ugly bruise was behind his ear and a dried trickle of blood had wormed down his neck like a strange tattoo.