The Sword of Sighs (The Age of the Flame: Book One) (14 page)

On towards the Mountains of Mourning.

Chapter Eighteen

They soon came to an empty village. Each of the huts was a collapsing skeleton of boards and hole-riddled timber. The edges of the holes bore the marks of teeth.

“More of the Dionin’s work,” muttered Ossen.

“Ossen,” Sarah said, “you said we might have been responsible for what happened at the camp...?”

“We might have been. The Dionin are creations of the Fallen One, and doubtless he has them seeking us as much as his Fallen-born.”

Sarah took a hard breath and then asked, “Seeking
us
or seeking
me
?”

Ossen turned his eye upon her, and she saw the hardness that had marked it since the attack in the camp dissolve a little. A shadow of his old warmth returned. “I am sorry, Sarah. I see you are beginning to understand.”

“Why do they have to hound me and kill people because of me?
Why?
”

"Because you carry the Flame. The Fallen One will do whatever He must to extinguish it and kill you. Even now, I think, He watches us from the Shadowhorn. He knows where we are bound, and He means to ensure that you die before you reach its foothills.”

The rain fell harder—it would pour down later—and the wind keened, making their teeth chatter. There would be no more walking that night.

“But we must rest here before we go on. I will take the first watch.” The Sworn's hand rested on Ossen’s shoulder, fingers digging in hard.

“Very well, O Sworn. You may take the watch rather than myself.”

The Sworn relaxed its grip.

Ossen led them into one of the huts. Its roofing was still in one piece, and it was dark, musty, and draughty inside, but dry. They squeezed water out of their clothes as best they could. The grey light that streamed in through the windows did no more to disturb the darkness inside than a single small candle might illuminate the void of outer space. A bed in a weak-looking frame squatted close to the ground. The hollows made by those who once slept there showed as mould in the decaying mattress. The stove was broken, and the dwelling looked ready to collapse in on itself at any time.

It was not easy to sleep. The killings had happened not so long ago, and they had left a taint in the air, a slight taste that kept Sarah awake. She felt as if she would die from suffocation if she lay down to sleep there; that the night’s dark matter might crawl inside and fill her heart. She got to her feet and went over to Ossen. He was on second watch, staring off into space. The fire he lit had dwindled until only ashes and embers remained. The Sworn slept, a dark mound not far from the shrinking circle of light. The Wayfarer and Sarah sat together, and he wrapped her in the excess of his voluminous robes. Their eyes wandered with the drifting paths of smoke tendrils and the dying dance of embers.

“Why do we live in such dark times, Ossen?”

“Because the will of men has worked upon the World and made it so. But past times were not so much better, and let no-one tell you otherwise. There have been darker ages than this, wholly because those who lived in them thought, without question, that they served reason, purity, and light. In fact, they were ferocious fools who wandered from the Path into madness, sterility, and darkness. The Light and the Dark are One, Sarah, in truth. Neither is
other
and to be feared. Neither must be damned and burned away from our lives. Without the light, we are lost, but without the darkness, how would we know there is beauty in the arctic shine of that steadfast north star?”

“Your words make me feel better, Ossen.”

“My words are a part of life and of the Flame. They are not my own. No more than your words are your own. They, like the Flame, have been since the dawn of time and will be until all things are extinct and the world grows dark and cold.”

“The Flame ... I feel it but only sometimes. What does it mean for me, having the Flame inside?”

“It means there is a better chance you will ascend the Fellhorn alive, rather than fall dead upon the Path.”

Sarah was silent for a moment, thinking. “Do you know what the Flame is, Ossen?”

“The Old Words say that, at the border between the Dark and the Light, there is a Flame and it burns Eternal.”

“And what is the Fallen One?”

“There is a rot, a blackness that flows through existence, moving, changing, eating, decaying.”

“This rot, this blackness, that’s where it comes from?”

“No, rot and decay are as natural as birth and life. Remember what I said about how Light and the Dark are one? The Fallen One is that rot and decay out of its place, taken out of time. He is a shadow that should not be—the Darkness That Is Not Darkness—as are all who serve Him and the fell beings created by Him.”

“What does all that mean?”

“It means that the shadows cast by twilight are as much a danger as the shadows that live in the hearts of men and women. The Fallen One and His spawn can be in all of them, watching and waiting.”

As he spoke the last words, Ossen saw that Sarah was asleep beside him. He rested an arm around her until morning, not bothering to wake her for the third watch.

~ ~ ~

Sarah awoke to light and to clear skies. The rain had passed, stripping some of the gloom from the abandoned village. Outside, she saw Ossen walking alone, his footsteps steady as he passed from house to house, stopping to turn and nod at the doorway of each one before moving on to the next. Sarah watched him make a circuit of the village to perform this peculiar ritual.

When he came back, she asked, “What were you doing out there?”

“Making peace with the spirits of the dead. It is good for them to know that the living remember them and wish them well, since they died the way they did.”

“You spoke to them?”

“After a fashion. Mostly, I listened. They told me of the things in the world that they will miss. The smell of wet wood burning. The first frost of a winter morning breaking underfoot. Words spoken by men and women who know how to speak them well. Silence settling about the room after one has made love. A woman’s heartbeat. A man’s contented sigh. All of the things we are asleep to until we are taken by death.”

Through the hut doorway, Sarah watched drops of rain fall from the edge of the roof. Each drop was scintillating—a shining diamond—so many little crystals bursting and dissolving against the old, beaten wood and the ground.

A hundred heartbeats. A thousand tears.

Sarah could feel her stomach rumbling, and then, out of the brush, she saw the Sworn coming towards them carrying a brace of hares.

“Ah, breakfast is served,” said Ossen with a smile.

Sarah thought it was the first true one she had seen him make since they had escaped the Kay’lo encampment.

Later, with bellies full of lean, savoury meat, the three companions walked out of the village and on to where Ossen said there was an old boat house.

“I wasn’t just exchanging pleasantries with the spirits, you know,” he said. “We are out of our way and need to make up time as quickly as we can. Better that we travel by water than by land, now that we are without horses.”

The river was waiting for them. Long grass rustled, keening a little in the breeze, which carried traces of salt. Birds called, high and low, and resembled scraps of dirty cloth falling and fluttering in the sky. Fishing boats were ahead, under cover in a shed, hidden from sight by leaves and flora. They approached until they heard something snap in the shadow of the boatshed, a deliberate footstep. Then another and another, and then dark figures stepped out into the open.

The Fallen-born had found them.

Their eyes were freezing cold yet burning bright pits of ice and nothingness, which danced with raw, naked flames. Ossen walked past Sarah, moving so quickly that her grasping hand missed him. She could see him concentrating upon his progress towards the Fallen-born, making himself appear sure and steady before them.

“Go back whence you came, Fellspawn. Back to your Master and His tomb beneath the Shadowhorn,” said Ossen.

The Fallen-born spoke as one, “We shall do no such thing, Ossen One-Eye.”

“Is that the extent of your strength these days? An insult worthy of a spoilt child?”

"Have a care, One-Eye," they hissed, advancing, their mottled swords scraping from ancient scabbards. “You shall kneel at His feet before He is done with you.”

“I think not, Devil-eyes.”

The hissing rose in pitch, the creatures taking the insult as well as Ossen had taken to being called One-Eye. Sarah and the Sworn watched as the Fallen-born closed in on them, constantly shifting, moving across the space between them whenever their eyes blinked or looked away. Sarah could feel the Sworn tensing, ready to fight. She drew Fang from its short scabbard at her waist. Ossen seemed as still as the Shades. His head was bowed and his fingers gripped his staff. Sarah was sure she could hear him muttering under his breath. The Fallen-born moved like black snakes slithering softly through the high, dry grass. When she turned to face one, it would move into the periphery of her vision, forcing her to keep moving. She could see that the Sworn was doing the same in order to keep them in sight.

“Take your eyes off them and you’re dead.”

Sarah’s heart jumped; the Sworn had spoken. And she knew that voice. She had heard it once before. But there was no time for that now. The Fallen-born continued their circling dance of shadows, keeping Sarah and the Sworn moving. Sarah felt her head swim and her eyes ache. A dizziness washed over her. This was a game to them. They were tiring them out. And why was Ossen just standing there like that?

“Why isn’t he helping?”

“One-Eye abandons you to our care. He knows our Master is stronger than those of Wayfarer blood,”
hissed the Fallen-born.

Then Ossen turned to face them. He threw up his arms and cried out,
“Behold the Living Flame that burns away His Shadow!”

Sarah was lifted off her feet, suspended in the air, her arms flung out and her head cast back as surging waves of fire and light poured out of her. The brilliant fury consumed all in its path—and the Fallen-born were what lay in its path this time. She could not see them, but she heard them shrieking as the flames tore through them and wore them away into nothing, just as the sun’s light banishes the night on a spring morning. In mere moments, it was over, though it felt like she had spent an eternity hanging in the air. She fell to earth, shaking and drawing deep, hard breaths. Her legs gave out from under her. The Sworn caught her before she fell. Through the haze in her head, Sarah saw the Sworn tear away the wrappings from its face to glare at Ossen. “You should not have done that, Ossen. You could have killed her.”

“The Fallen-born would have killed all of us, and where would we be then—all lying dead or worse, with our souls bound by agony until they could take us to Him?”

“You go too far.
Never
do that again. Not until she knows and understands the Flame fully.”

“You are a fine one to talk. You think I did not guess how you saved us from the Dionin? No art that was not magical could have raised us up into the branches of that tree. And you learned that art from Him!”

The eyes in the unmasked face of the Sworn met Ossen’s gaze and matched it. Sarah had last seen that face and its dark flowing hair framed by flames, burning at the stake in the square of Highmount.

The Sworn was Princess Jedda.

Chapter Nineteen

Jedda looked down at Sarah’s shivering form. Kneeling down by her side, she smoothed the girl’s brow and prayed to the Mother as the boat made its way downriver. The Wayfarer had cast a spell of basic sentience upon the craft, so that it steered itself along without needing someone at the helm. The deck creaked as Ossen appeared at the gangway.

“You could have killed her back there,” Jedda reprimanded. “She is weak and wasted from the strain of letting the Flame loose in that way.”

“I know,” he said. “I would not have done it if there were any other choice, but Sarah was the only one who could extinguish them temporarily and gain us time.”

“Still, it could have been the death of her, and then all of this would have been for nothing.”

“It was a risk I had to take. What would you say your counsel with The Fallen One was?”

The princess’s eyes grew wet and she sucked in a hard breath. “It was for Venna. I didn’t know you would come for me. Or that anyone would. They put me on the rack. I lived four years of my life alone in that darkness, hearing stories about Ianna and what she was doing to my sister, and knowing what she would finally do to me. My heart grew as cold and hard as the stone in the prison walls. There was no-one there for me, so I reached out to Him. It was a risk I had to take.”

“There always are such risks in life, Jedda. And always we think there should be another way, but they exist only with hindsight.”

“I thought you’d be angrier than this, Ossen. It could be me that He has been watching and following all along.”

“Perhaps, but He has known about me and about Sarah for some time. You, me, her—His eyes are on all three of us, even if she alone carries the Flame. We each threaten Him. He fears me for my knowledge of the past, and you for your knowledge of His nature.”

With those words, he turned back to Sarah.

Jedda could see Sarah’s struggle. Tears gathered under her eyelids and ran down her face. She looked outside to watch the river rolling them away from shore, the current carrying them out into the distance, into the future, towards the Mountains of Mourning. Whatever was out there, whatever was waiting, she knew it was going to hurt them all. This journey would change them into people they might not recognise as themselves. Jedda hunched her shoulders. So little sleep for so long. So much pain and sickness in so little time. In the dimness of the boat’s interior, she felt the darkness breathing, moving to embrace her.

“Come…to me…O traitor-child…embrace…the Dark…”