The door opened.
“You should not be out of bed, Sarah.”
It was Ossen, the Wayfarer, just as he had appeared in her dream.
And he was there in the clearing at the end, after I fell, she thought.
“You ... were there. You saved me.”
His one eye blinked. “Yes, but I was too late to save you from being wounded.”
“I’ll get better. I’m all right.”
“You are sick and tired, now please get back into the bed before I call Mistress Ruth to do so for you.”
“Who’s Mistress Ruth?”
“You have been sleeping in her bed these past two days.”
“Two days!”
“Indeed, the wound you took from that Fallen-born blade was grievous. It took all my knowledge of the Dark to unweave its poison and Mistress Ruth’s understanding of remedies to heal your flesh. She is a most talented Herb-Sister, one of the best I know, and still you were a challenge to her skills. Now please, to bed.”
Sarah, shaking a little, clambered back under the sheets. Their warmth and weight felt good. Standing, even for a short time, had left her feeling as thin and fragile as spun glass.
“I can’t believe this. I’m talking to a man I met in a dream.”
“And you came to this World from the Wood Beneath the Worlds. I think I am the least of the strange things you have seen and known in the last few years.”
Sarah smiled. “That’s true. I wish Momma were here to see this.”
Ossen’s face deepened with a sad frown. “They miss you as much as you do them, Sarah.”
“You’ve seen them? Have you spoken to them? Told them I’m all right?”
“No. I am a Wayfarer. A wanderer along the Paths of the Thirteen Worlds. I see and hear much that takes place in them. But I do not interfere where it is not permitted.”
“Do they think I’m dead?’
“Three years is a long time, Sarah. But the Flame burns in them, as it does in you. They wait for you. They hope. They always will.”
“People keep saying that to me: the Flame. What is the Flame?”
“That is not for me to tell you just now. Later, when you are well rested, we can talk.”
“Can you tell me if I will get home? I thought the White Rider was going to take me home, but he brought me here.”
“The White Rider does as it wills. You can no more tell it where to take you than you could tell Gorra to stop growing his trees or Yagga to give up her witchcraft.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It should.”
“You mean you can’t tell me that either. Great.”
“I am sorry, Sarah, but there are some things beyond me. Your Path will lead you where it takes you; no more than that can I say.”
Sarah dropped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, seeing Momma there in the cracks and lines, and Dad as well. She could feel tears prickling at her eyes.
“Can you leave please, Ossen. I want to be alone for a while.”
“Sarah—”
“Please.”
The Wayfarer left.
Sarah let the tears come and wept quietly in peace.
~ ~ ~
Later, dry-eyed, Sarah arose from the bed. It was dark outside, but she found clothes waiting for her at the foot of the bed: brown breeches, a cream shirt, a tan leather jerkin, and scuffed boots. She dressed and went to the door, pausing to listen.
It was quiet outside.
Opening the door without a creak, she then crept into the corridor outside, looking both ways. A few more doors extended away from her to a blank wall. The other direction led to stairs downwards. Sarah headed towards the stairs.
A cold wind blew at her back. Turning, she saw the blank wall at the end of the corridor. It was rippling and pulsing, lining with cracks that slowly split wide open. A sudden silence fell as the wall opened to become a pale toothless mouth, and out of it flowed a darkness—a darkness that resolved itself into a column of fumes and swirling smoke. Moving strangely, flowing fast then freezing still, it came towards her much like the Fallen-born had, seemingly out of phase with the world, ill at ease with it. Not a part of it. Silence and stillness washed over Sarah as it came nearer. She opened her mouth, but no sound would come out. She could feel her temperature rising, peaking with fever, as she fought to move and run from this thing of soundless smoke. Sickly, soft laughter echoed inside her head. The shadow’s shifting, foggy folds flickered like a dance of black flames.
“You cannot hide from me, O Flame … I know you as you know me ... nowhere are you safe … you are your own prison … a prison without walls…”
It loomed, tall and high, over her. Its depths seemed to gape at her, hungry, aching. Sarah raised her hands to ward it off, knowing they were no defence.
Suddenly, fire and lightning smote at the darkness, hurling it back. A torrent of brilliance crucified the smouldering column, shattering it into streamers and a fading black mist that thrashed and ululated in horrid high tones.
The source of the fire and lightning was Sarah.
It was gushing from her outstretched hands, tidal wave after tidal wave rolling down the corridor towards the dark invader, pounding at it. Thunder. Fury. Light. Anger. Purity. It poured from her outthrust hands, then from her mouth, her torso and her eyes. But she could still see the darkness struggling against the light. It was being held by it, worn away by it. What little substance it had was steadily evaporating. It writhed once more and then, in a gout of smoke and fumes, it was gone, leaving only a soot-black smear upon the wall. The fire and lightning thinned out, trickling down to nothing, and then they, too, were gone. Sarah sagged to the ground, gasping, but hands caught her and laid her down. Ossen was kneeling beside her, his one eye glittering bright. “I told you to stay in bed, Sarah.”
“Ossen … what was that?”
“A Drujja. Another emissary of the Fallen One. The name means The Storm that Walks. You are lucky that you were able to face it in your condition. It seems that the hunt for you is truly on. We have very little time. Come with me.”
~ ~ ~
They were inside a room that was shadowed, although lit by a few candles. The air was heavy and thick. Fragrant fumes rose in purple-blue clouds from smouldering bowls set around the two beds. On the small bed, swaddled in linen, lay Barra. On the large bed, was Woran, his eyes closed. A stained bandage wrapped his shoulder, and another, his brow. Sarah stepped closer and saw his eyes twitch beneath their lids. She could see Barra’s chest steadily rising and falling, despite the dimness.
They were alive.
A motherly woman with long blonde hair, who wore a frock of patterned woodland shades, was bustling around the beds, checking the bowls and the patients by turn.
“You must be Mistress Ruth,” Sarah said.
“Yes. I guess I must be. Yes. Now, you come on over here with me. There’s someone wants to see you.”
“Thank you, Mistress Ruth. For healing me. And them. I don’t know what I would have done if—“
“Don’t speak a word of it now, Sarah. I know your story. You’ve lost one family already. Losing another would be too much for your heart. I know, I know.”
There was a weight to her words that Sarah didn’t ask about. “Mistress Ruth, what happened to us? What were those things?”
“Best you be asking that question to your Wayfarer there. I heal and I soothe; I don’t talk of that which causes pain and wounds, if I can help it.”
A groan came from Woran. His eyes opened.
“Can I speak to him?”
“For a little while, yes. But go easy on him. He’s been there and back again as far as sickness and nightmares are concerned. He needs a lot of rest.”
Sarah nodded and went to Woran. His eyes found hers and a strained smile spread across his face. “Sarah … you’re well. Those things … Fallen-born … they said they were going to … that you were going to …”
&
nbsp; “Don’t say it. They didn’t, Woran. I’m okay.”
She didn’t mention the fight, the tiredness, or the pain that was still lingering on in her side. Woran shifted on the bed.
“Careful now, you. I’ll not have you collapsing and falling about the place,” said Mistress Ruth.
But Woran didn’t get up; instead, he drew a hand out from under the sheets and placed something in Sarah’s hand.
“Take this, Sarah. May it harm all those who seek to harm you. It was no help when they jumped me—the Saltwines and Taproots—but maybe it’ll be of better use in the hand of someone young and spry.”
He pressed a long dagger into her hand; one that she knew well. It was called Fang. It was one of his treasures from the war. Polished silver decorated with curls of leaf, vine, and thorn along the hilt and blade.
“Thank you, Woran. But I won’t need it. As soon as you’re better, we’re going back to the hill and the valley. I don’t want to go further out into the world.”
Woran’s smile grew sad. “You must, my dear. You must go with Ossen. He will see you safe along the Path now. I have done what I could.”
“But why must I go?”
“Because you keep the Flame inside you. He told me. He sees it. And so does the Black Lord Under the Mountan.”
“I don’t care if he sees it. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to lose you or Barra. I want to go home, away from this. Don’t make me leave you, Grandfather.” With tears in her eyes, she flung herself at him. Their embrace was hard, but loving and close.
“Save yourself and live the journey, Sarah,” Woran whispered, kissing her brow. "The Path is long and hard, and it hurts our hearts and feet, but we all must walk it. Now is your time. Please. Trust me and go with him.”
“Live the journey, Grandfather,” Sarah said, hovering close to him and wiping her eyes. “You’re the only family I’ve got left now. I’ll come back for you, after it’s all over and done with. Count on it.”
“I hope so, Sarah … I hope so.”
With those words, Woran let out a long sigh and sank back into his pillow to sleep. Sarah let herself be led away by Mistress Ruth and Ossen, looking back to Woran and Barra. They seemed so small surrounded by the scented shadows and warm darkness of the room.
So small.
~ ~ ~
Sarah was seated at the dining table, which was laden with bread, cheese, and cold cuts of meat, as well as flagons of fruit juice and some stronger beverages. Ossen sat at the opposite end of the table, sucking hard on a stubby darkwood pipe and blowing streamers of strongly-scented smoke from his thin nostrils. Sarah ate under the watchful eye of Mistress Ruth, who tutted and sighed whenever the girl asked if she could have some more.
“Of course you can. Plenty here for you. Tuck in. You need to keep your strength up.”
Sarah finished off more cheese, bread, and meat than she was sure she had ever eaten, before sitting back in her chair and sipping at cinnamon-spiced apple juice.
She gathered her thoughts, working out what questions she needed to ask.
“Ossen, what is the Fallen One?”
A streaming cloud of pipe-fumes wreathed the Wayfarer as he said, “We know very little of Him. We know he does not come from this World but from another, possibly somewhere beyond the boundaries of the Thirteen. He fell into this World when Seythe was first created. Some wonder whether his arrival here was the spark that set Creation in motion—frightening thought that it may be. But yes, he fell like a black and lightless star and was buried beneath what became known as the Shadowhorn Mountain in the east. Over time, he has awoken when the stars in the heavens reach a certain alignment, and those who serve him seek to remake Seythe as he would wish it to be.”
“And the Fallen-born are?”
“His Five Shadows—fragments of the Fallen One that have escaped from his tomb under the mountain.”
“But they had the faces of … people I know from back home.”
“They are things of fear and nightmare, as is the Fallen One. Your own terrors can shape them, in the same way that your eyes can sometimes see imagined things in the dark of night. They are less than shadows and more than darkness. Thank the Mother that there are only five of them.”
“And they are after me?”
“They are after all of us, but yes, you in particular.”
A silence settled in the room as Sarah asked the final question that had been burning inside her. “What about me? What am I?”
“You are the Living Flame. There is a Fire within you that is born to few across all of the Thirteen Worlds. It can create. It can destroy. It can be whatever you wish. It is the innate force that shapes all things from the beginning to the end of Time itself.”
“And it can destroy the Fallen One?”
“Yes, Sarah. Once you know the art of it, you would be able to stand against the Fallen One—possibly the only person in all of the Worlds who could.”
“I am the Flame,” she said the words quietly out loud, tasting them on her tongue. “What do I do now, then? Those things are after us. I’m not going to have the time to learn any arts while they’re chasing us.”
“No. That’s true.”
“So, how do we kill them before they kill us?”
She looked at Mistress Ruth, and then at Ossen, and then back again, seeking their guidance. Mistress Ruth and Ossen also exchanged glances, as if agreeing on something.
“Mistress Ruth? Ossen? Tell me.”
The Herb-Sister acquiesced and nodded. “You’re right, my dear. There is a way to kill Fallen-born, but it’s outside my knowledge and that of the Wayfarer.”
Sarah turned back to Ossen, who was even more obscured in his pipe-smoke than before. His one eye shone from within the cloud, like a blue midnight moon.
“Ossen, tell me. Please. What must I do? Where must I go?”
The Wayfarer sighed. “You would need to travel to the Western Wastes that lie on the far side of the Mountains of Mourning. There is a lone mountain there, the Fellhorn, brother to the Shadowhorn, and there is something driven into the very stone of the peak that can slay the Shades that pursue us.”
“What is it?”
“A’aron—the Sword of Sighs. It can only be drawn from the rock by one who bears the Flame. It will channel and control the Fire inside you, and it will allow you to lay the Shades to rest forever, but it will be a long and dangerous journey, Sarah. And not one from which you are certain to return.”
“But it’s one I have to make, Ossen. It’s my Path, right?”
“Yes, Sarah. It is your Path. Yours alone. Only you can decide.”
“When must we go?”
“Tonight,” he said. “We must ride hard and fast and far. They will be at our heels the whole way now that they have our scent and their Master has His eyes on you. Will you have me with you, Sarah?”
She raised her eyebrows at the question.
The Wayfarer scratched lightly at the pink pucker of his absent eye. “I know things about what may lie ahead for you. If you will have me, I will go with you and walk the Path that lies ahead.”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because a Wayfarer is no king to force his will upon others. I ask, and I await your words.”
Sarah bit her lip. “Yes. Please come with me, Ossen.”
He smiled, and so did Mistress Ruth.
~ ~ ~
They set out the following morning with Sarah mounted on a stout grey pony and Ossen astride his white stallion. Saddlebags were packed with victuals provided by Mistress Ruth. She kissed Sarah on the cheek and embraced her tightly before letting her go. Sarah watched the woman make no such gestures to Ossen, but there was a look in her eyes, and in his, of shared longing and sorrow, which made Sarah look away. She let them have a moment alone. Then Ossen was leading the way on his stallion, and Sarah was looking back at Mistress Ruth. Sarah was sure Mistress Ruth did not leave the doorstep of her lonesome house until they were we
ll out of sight, with the Northway Mountains looming ever larger before them as they travelled on to the city of Highmount.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Eleven
Highmount appeared to be more of a fortress than a city to Sarah. Great walls of grey stone separating the city into those with wealth and those without. The latter faced out onto the Grassland Plains and their part of the city was more often known as Plainstown than regarded as a true part of Highmount. In the event of attack, the poor would be marshalled to defend their betters from invaders. Or rather, they would fight while their betters fled to find sanctuary in the Three Kingdoms beyond.
It had not always been so, but the centuries had worn away at the small society of Highmount until it became composed of two very distinct strata: dissolute decadence, and those born to poverty.
Ossen and Sarah rode into the richer part of the city through the Norn gate.
Sarah’s eyes could barely tear themselves from the soaring cleft of the Northway Pass, in which the city was built, until she saw the beauty of the buildings around her. In contrast to the functional grey stone of the outer wall, here was marble, rare limestone, and black quartz threaded with veins of silver, bronze, and gold. Great windows let light in to the palatial structures of villas and grand halls, all with porches and alcoves supported by towering concentric columns. The streets were remarkably clean, and gutters ran alongside the roads and pathways. Workers from Plainstown could be seen sweeping rubbish into these gutters. Ossen led the way to the largest building of them all—the Palace-Hall of Highmount, built into the craggy stone of the pass itself. They dismounted and climbed the two hundred steps that led to its wrought-iron gates.
“Why are we here, Ossen?”
“To help a friend.”
The guards opened the gates and ushered Sarah and Ossen in. They walked down the hewn corridor lit by flickering lanterns. In alcoves, Sarah saw the sanguine faces of kings and queens of Highmount, carved from grey marble threaded with turquoise. Precious stones glittered as eyes in each one, making her feel like she was being watched by the dead. They came to the Court and waited at the edge of the crowd. Sarah peeped through the gaps, catching glimpses of the underage queen, sitting awkwardly on the throne, and the regal woman at her side.