THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 2 — SWORD OF DREAMS
Chapter 19: Voices
“Never carry a sword when a knife will do.”
– Malkain Brone, Mirran monarch (592 MA)
Gavriel stood next to the fire. The flames blazed and twisted like graceful golden dancers. He held his hands out, warming them. The cold had stiffened his joints and his work called for precision. Gavriel rubbed his hands briskly together and felt the sting of blood rushing back into his flesh. He peered through the flames at the Arcadian sitting on the other side.
“Prianus is a world of ice,” he said. “The cold of this place seeps into the very souls of those who live here. How long have you been on this planet?”
“For a… a long time,” she answered unhelpfully.
Gavriel stepped around the makeshift concrete fire pit and lifted the fairy’s chin. Her remaining eye brimmed with tears that dripped down her pale cheek and burned like molten metal across Gavriel’s cold skin.
“Your face is so young. Yet even the oldest of my kind are only children in the eyes of yours,” Gavriel said. He stroked her cheek. “The Arcadians are such a wise and lovely race. None know death so intimately as the angels of the White Kingdom. Tell me, do you remember the worlds of Arcadia?”
The fairy sobbed. She wore the tatters of a hooded fleece jacket and pants of similar fabric. At least, that was Gavriel’s best guess. At his instruction, the Nihilists who had brought her were less than gentle. Broken white feathers littered the floor.
She didn’t look at Gavriel. Instead, she strained weakly against the nails driven through her delicate wrists and into the splintered arms of the chair. Wailing and gasping in pain, she fell back into the bloody ruins of her own wings.
“Please, kill me!” the Arcadian cried.
“Life is so painful, isn’t it?” Gavriel said. “And death such a sweet refuge. Once you reach that safety, you will never hurt again.”
“Then kill me, I beg.”
Her Aver was quite good, but her strength was already waning. The others had lasted much longer. Gavriel sang a few soft words and gestured. A line of blood appeared across her skin, just below her delicate collarbone. The Arcadian screamed. Her cry stretched out, thinning like melting ice and Gavriel slid the spell down across her soft inner arm.
More. Gavriel sang a new song in the fairy’s own language.
“Marnavae eru nai’i illithae vernae isha, xellae nai esha arae ilvae imma, shie’i junno kash.”
It had been a song taught to take away pain, one popular among the knights and healers of the White Kingdom. But it took so little to turn the spell’s purpose to something more useful. Just a few words, just the will… The captive Arcadian’s wail rose to a razor shriek of agony as the spell plucked her nerves like harp strings. Gavriel let the last notes of his spell linger and gave himself a moment to savor the satisfaction of the pure, powerful tone.
And then there was silence, ringing in Gavriel’s ears. He stroked the fairy’s cheek again. Her golden hair was streaked in bright red blood, the mingled colors of sunset. The final bright flare of light before night came.
“I can kill you, dearest one,” Gavriel said. “I can deliver you to death, but there are things you must tell me first. Tell me, were you born on Prianus?”
“No…” the fairy rasped. Her answer was a dry whisper, as soft as the woman’s feathers as they sifted through the air, down to the stained floor.
“Where were you born?” Gavriel asked.
“Orindell.”
That confirmed what Gavriel had heard. She was from the right planet, the first world attacked by the alien Devourers one hundred years ago. Gavriel’s heart sped in his fragile old chest.
“Do you remember the Devourers?” he asked intently. “Did you see them? Do you remember them?”
“The skies were full of smoke and the Devourers tore the very ground apart,” the fairy said. The memory wounded her almost as much as Gavriel’s spells. “I saw demons in the skies. They flew as though on black wings, like the pyrads, and armored themselves in living ash! One of the great shades leapt down and tore my mother away. Erris forgive me, I flew. I fled and left her behind. I did not look back.”
“You didn’t look back,” Gavriel repeated, disappointed and then angry. “Then you didn’t see them.”
“The shadows were red with blood…” The Arcadian was crying again, but Gavriel hadn’t raised his voice. This pain was her own. “I could not look back.”
Gavriel trailed a finger down the side of her throat. The fairy’s pulse fluttered under his touch, as swift and delicate as the beating wings of a hummingbird. So lovely… and so useless. Still, he wasn’t without pity for the girl.
“You have suffered so much, my dear. Such pain and such terror. And such guilt for your own weakness. You have endured enough. So I release you,” Gavriel told her. He closed his eyes and sang once more. “Anu’aa quai eru oraiva’i na!”
The captive fairy strained against the nails through her wrists, freeing new streams of hot red blood. She screamed, twitched once more and then finally went still. When Gavriel was finished, he gestured toward one of the robed Nihilists standing silently beside the door.
“Korso, go get Xartasia,” he instructed.
“She’s busy with Arkan,” Korso said. “He really wanted to come to you, but Xartasia told him you were busy.”
“And so I was. But no longer. Bring them both here.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Korso hurried off to do as he was told.
“Surely such news would have reached us by now,” Xartasia insisted with a frown.
Arkan gave her a sullen look, but had better sense than to argue with Gavriel’s favorite. He sneezed and wiped his reddened nose. The Prian weather didn’t agree with him at all.
“I’m sorry, Lady Xartasia, I have no idea why no one’s told you,” he said. “But I swear it’s true. Someone is up in those mountains and one of them is a bird-back.”
Xartasia ignored the slur.
“And you believe that this information requires Lord Gavriel’s attention?” she asked.
“Yeah, I do.”
There was a challenge in Arkan’s tone, but not enough. He was clearly still nerving himself up for something more volatile. They stood at one end of the apartment block’s littered corridor while a crowd of other Nihilists watched from the doorways and further down the hall.
A Lyran with patchy fur growled at Xartasia. “You don’t have to take her shit, Arkan.”
“Watch it,” said a tall human from a leaning doorway opposite the hall. The Nihilists gathered around him murmured and nodded in agreement. “Lady Xartasia doesn’t answer to you!”
“Why the hells isn’t she working with the rest of the bird-backs down in the valley?” the Lyran asked with a snarl. “Or are you such a worthless slat that you have to wait up here?”
The princess turned her violet eyes on the Lyran and smiled coldly. He laid his ears back along his skull. Wiry fur bristled down the length of his spine, all the way to his bottlebrushed tail. Xartasia raised a hand and pointed to the rude little dog-man.
“Anu’aa quai eru oraiva’i na,” she sang out in a clear, pure voice.
The Lyran’s snarl became suddenly shrill. His eyes rolled back and he thumped to the floor. Blood poured from his open mouth. A white-eyed Hadrian woman kicked the Lyran’s body once, then dragged him out of the hallway.
“Damn it, Mrell,” she sighed. “You lucky furball.”
“Arkan! Lady Xartasia!”
Xartasia looked up a nearby stairwell. A shaven-headed man in Nihilist black was calling to her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Lord Gavriel wants to see you,” he said. “Both of you.”
Xartasia vaulted into the air, landing high on the stairs. Arkan and Korso huffed their way up the stairs after her.
She lifted the hem of her gown as she made her way down the hall and stopped at the door of Gavriel’s latest torture chamber. He had been at his task for some time. Xartasia stepped over a still-wet spatter of gore and several teeth, probably where another Arcadian prisoner had fought back. Whether the blood and teeth belonged to aggressor or victim, she did not know.
Xartasia found Gavriel silhouetted against the flames of a large fire burning right in the middle of the bare concrete floor. A dead Arcadian girl sat nailed to a wooden chair nearby. Xartasia noted the many cuts and bruises all over her exposed skin. Gavriel had been playing with his new spells.
“She didn’t remember enough to be of use,” said the age-spotted old Nihilist, his back turned to the door.
Xartasia glided across the room, still eyeing the dead girl. “What did you expect, Gavriel? I warned you that the memories would be difficult to obtain.”
Arkan and Korso entered behind her. They bowed and waited for their master’s attention, but Gavriel wasn’t done with Xartasia. He turned and advanced on her in a few swift strides. He was aged and frail for a human, but his passion and fervor lent a powerful, purposeful weight to his movements.
“There were millions of Arcadians, princess,” Gavriel said, his voice rising. “Millions of fairies across five worlds! And not one of you can remember the faces of the Devourers?”
Xartasia thought of the dead Lyran downstairs, Mrell, the way his ears had flattened in obvious anger and could almost imagine hers doing the same. She had warned Gavriel… But trading a few snarls and killing a Nihilist was one thing. Challenging the master of their faith was another. Xartasia didn’t dare meet Gavriel’s anger with her own. She spread her wings and held them low in a gesture of submission.
“As you say, there were millions of my people. The Devourers ravaged the entire White Kingdom in under three months. Three months,” Xartasia said, gently emphasizing the words. “There is no force in the Alliance or the rim kingdoms that could ever match such savagery.”
“You fought them,” Gavriel said.
“And lost terribly. The Devourers killed all of our knights, tore them from the skies with their black smoke. All of those who came close to the monsters are dead. Finding one who remembers more than shades and nightmares will be difficult.”
“So you said,” Gavriel said, still as ominous as a storm but no longer shouting. “And we came to Prianus to find more Arcadians. We climbed through ice and broken mountains because there are more of your fairies here than anywhere else in the galaxy. But none of them remember any better than you do, princess!”
“We have not yet spoken to all of them,” Xartasia answered.
Her eyes were drawn inexorably back to the broken, mutilated body in the chair. She was just a girl. An innocent girl.
Xartasia closed her eyes.
“Princess Titania?”
At the sound of her name, she looked up from her sketch. The likeness was rough — she couldn’t seem to get his eyes quite right — but it looked enough like Anthem, her beloved enarri, to make her heart ache in her breast. Titania hadn’t brought any images of her lover from the White Kingdom and had to content herself now with these clumsy pictures.
I miss you, my love, she thought. Erris All-Singer, please hold my Anthem close and protect his spirit until I join him.
Titania’s young handmaiden, Alarra, knelt before her. The overturned crate on which the princess sat was hardly a throne, but Alarra always acted as though it were a majestic seat of her mistress’ power. The girl’s curly hair was a beautiful gold, even under the flat, colorless daylights of Axis’ lower levels. Titania was affectionately jealous of Alarra’s lovely hair. The black mane of Cavain’s bloodline was a royal mark, but she always thought that it lacked that sunny vibrancy.
Titania had been using a piece of charcoal to draw and now wiped her hands carefully on a scrap of cloth. She touched her fingertip to her own hair. It was lank and greasy. How long since she had been able to wash it?
But Alarra’s eyes were wide and frightened.
“They are back!” she said in their own language. “The Sisterhood has returned!”
A tall, powerful-looking human woman came around the corner. She flexed bulging biceps tattooed with gruesome scenes of male debasement. A sheathed knife hung from her belt, but the two women who flanked her carried naked blades in their hands. They were short and dull, but still better weaponry than the Arcadians had.
The Sisterhood’s approach startled the other three fairies — the rest of Titania’s tiny court — who had been sleeping on the hard ground nearby. Wanni spread her wings protectively around the other two. Titania stood and faced the humans.
“What you want?” she asked in fumbling Aver.
The Sisters laughed harshly.
“We’re here to collect your dues,” said their leader.
“But you take money already!” Titania protested.
Her face burned hot with shame that she should be barking at these women in such an ugly language, only half understood. Alarra buried her face against the princess’ knee and whimpered in terror.
“It’s dangerous around here, bird-back,” the gangster said. “Especially for aliens like you. It isn’t easy to protect fairies from so many enemies. Unless you want us as enemies, you’d better pay up.”
“Have no money!” Titania objected inelegantly.
“No money, hmm? Well, you better find some, little bird queen.”
Titania already regretted telling the Sisterhood of her royal lineage, but she had been desperate to stop them from slaughtering her people. It had worked… in part. The Sisters only killed the men now and demanded money not to do the same to the women.
How could Arcadians hope to earn money on Axis? Titania fumed impotently, unable to voice her fury to the gloating Sisters. No one on this metal planet would hire fairies. The coreworlders hated the Arcadians and refused to even let them apply for jobs.
“No money,” Titania said, struggling with the alien words. “No jobs!”
“Then you better learn to steal,” the tattooed Sister answered. She prodded the princess’ shoulder with a thick finger. “From somebody else. If you take anything from us, you’re going to find yourself paying a lot more than you can afford. Got it?”
“I… I understand.”
When they had finally gone, Alarra looked up from Titania’s skirts. The girl’s wide eyes shined with frightened tears.
“What can we do?” she asked. “The people of Axis defend what is theirs and all of our knights are gone. They put Savel’an in prison when he tried to steal bread for us!”
Wanni stood, bowing her head. She was much older than Alarra, a wise crone with gray-streaked hair who had served Titania’s father, the king, as an advisor before the princess was ever born.
“Your handmaiden is right, princess,” Wanni said. “We are ill-equipped and ill-suited to theft.”
Titania hated the Sisterhood, but she hated the Alliance even more for failing the frightened, hungry Arcadians. She had to pay the Sisters, but what could she do? Wanni was right — Titania would make a miserable thief.
“We cannot steal or find jobs on Axis, but we have one service we may sell here,” Titania said slowly.
Wanni’s eyes went wide. “Princess, you cannot be suggesting that we sell ourselves to these… these alien men! We know nothing of their appetites!”
Alarra stared at the two older women, understanding creeping across her pretty face.
“Prostitution?” she gasped. “But, my lady, you cannot! You are of the blood of Cavain.”
“I must protect my people, whatever the cost,” Titania said.
“Alarra is right,” Wanni told her. “You cannot taint yourself with an alien’s touch, princess.”
Titania felt sick. Even weeping over her pictures of Anthem didn’t hurt this much. She lifted Alarra’s chin in trembling fingers.
“Then I must send you, my sweetest girl. Wanni is too old and the others do not know a word of Aver. You must save us.”
“Yes, my lady,” she said.
Wanni helped Alarra scrub the worst of the dirt from her face and combed her lovely hair into smooth golden waves. Elassu and Ferrona straightened out Alarra’s white feathers and offered up the finest of their shabby clothes.
When they were done, Alarra lifted her chin bravely and went out into the Axis streets. Titania watched her young handmaiden go and then dropped her face into her hands, wings shaking with the force of her sobs.
Xartasia opened her eyes and looked up at Gavriel with eyes as hard as amethyst. Alarra was seventy-three years dead, shot in a dirty rental room by an unhappy customer. None of this pain would matter much longer. Xartasia spread her hands.
“There are other cities on Prianus. And there is Axis, as well. We will find one who remembers the Devourers,” she said.
It was true. It had to be true.
“This task would be much simpler if you remembered,” Gavriel replied.
“I was protected by knights in glass. They died saving me.”
“Speaking of all that… Lord Gavriel, I have something I need to tell you,” Arkan said, almost forgotten in the fetid shadows. He stood at the counter of the ruined apartment’s kitchen.
“What is it?” Gavriel’s tone was clipped and curt. He was just as eager as Xartasia to forge ahead with their plans and annoyed at the delays.
Arkan pointed to Xartasia. “I saw an Arcadian last night. One with black hair, just like her.”
“Where?”
“In the mountains west of Pylos. A few of the locals heard that there was some sort of expedition and went up to take a look, to see if there was anything worth some money,” Arkan said. “They came back with some nice scientific equipment. The Prians aren’t big scholars, so I thought that someone else might be out there on an exploration mission or something. If it was an Alliance group, they might be a little close to us.”
Gavriel’s eyes were narrowed.
“Yes,” he said.
“I had to take off a finger or two and bury the bodies, but the Prians told me where they found the machines,” Arkan reported. “So last night, I drove up to have a look around. I couldn’t get close to the camp, but I saw a fairy woman flying. The moons were all out and I got a good look at her. She had black hair and was carrying a gun.”
“Black hair,” Xartasia breathed. “Cavain’s mark. Did you see her face?”
“No. Like I said, I couldn’t get real close. She heard me coming, I think, and I turned back before she could see me.”
“Another Arcadian princess,” Gavriel said and stroked his lined cheek. He raised his eyes to Xartasia’s. “You always told me that you were the only one to escape the fall of the White Kingdom.”
“So I believed, until I met Maeve under the graveyard,” Xartasia said.
“The coincidence is too great to ignore. Either another of your family made it out…”
“Or else the interloper is my cousin herself,” Xartasia finished. “Her companion in Gharib, the cold-eyed human man, was Prian. Perhaps they have returned to his homeworld.”
Gavriel was staring into the dancing fire. “Maeve was a knight, wasn’t she? She was there when the Devourers came through the Tamlin Waygate. Maeve cast the very spell that summoned them. No one knows more about it than she does.”
“Maeve can give you what you desire. What we need.”
“Korso, go get me a map of the city and the mountains,” Gavriel instructed.
The bald Nihilist returned a moment later with a map. The plastic was torn and melted in places, but still functional. Gavriel smoothed it across the rotten kitchen counter. A beetle with a red-flecked brown shell squirmed out from the flaking wood and dropped to the floor, crawling off in a wandering line in search of a more peaceful nest.
Gavriel crooked his fingers at Arkan. “Now show me where you found them.”
“Yes, Lord Gavriel. There’s only one road that goes into that part of the mountains. Some of the bridges are in bad shape, but they’re passable,” Arkan said. He traced a road along the map and then stopped to sneeze into his sleeve. He sniffled and continued. “The camp is here. I don’t know quite how big it is, but there was more than one tent and a couple of trucks parked on this side, here.”
Gavriel took the pen Korso offered and circled the location.
“You have done very well,” he said. “So very well, Arkan.”
His voice flowed like a rich syrup, tempting and sweet. He held his hand out to the younger Nihilist and Arkan sank to his knees. Gavriel placed his palm on Arkan’s head.
“Thank you, Lord Gavriel. Thank you,” said the farmer. Gratitude shone in his wide eyes. “Danice, I’m so sorry. I just wanted you to be safe…”
Gavriel threw back his head and sang. “Anu’aa quai eru oraiva’i na!”
It was the same charm that Xartasia had sung at Mrell. A nerve somewhere in Arkan’s brain misfired and a blood vessel burst. His body convulsed, dancing in ghastly contortions as his master’s spell did its work. The white of one eye bloomed with red and Arkan fell heavily, a smile on his blood-flecked lips.
Gavriel was smiling, too. He knelt slowly and stroked Arkan’s hair back from his face.
“It’s good to give gifts to my faithful children again. Korso, take his body to the pit,” Gavriel ordered. He straightened and looked at Xartasia. “Now, let’s go find your cousin. She and I have much to discuss.”
Xartasia’s eyes drifted back to the dead girl nailed to her chair. The blood was cooling, drying and turning into a dark crust on her pale skin.
“Yes, Lord Gavriel,” Xartasia said.
