Queen of Fire

The Ally cast the head aside and turned to the crowd of onlookers. They had all retreated from him in evident fear, many turning to flee. Then, as one they came to a halt, all standing frozen and immobile. For a long moment the Ally regarded the crowd in careful scrutiny, then he began to walk among them, pausing next to a frozen man of athletic build and a yellowish glow, touching a hand to his head. The selected man’s back instantly formed a rigid arc as he voiced a silent scream, his light turning the same shade of red as the Ally in the space of a heartbeat.

The Ally moved on touching a dozen more men in quick succession, then striding from the crowd and standing to watch as the reddened figures began to murder their white companions. Some were strangled, others clubbed with rocks or branches for these people seemed to possess no weapons. All the while the Ally stood and watched the massacre, head tilted slightly in dispassionate observation. When it was done, every white glow snuffed out, the Ally walked off towards the north and the red men followed him.

Dahrena gripped Vaelin’s hand tighter as they flew higher, time accelerating beneath them, the Ally’s cluster of red blossoming in the north and spreading, issuing smaller clusters that spread like spores across the length and breadth of the Unified Realm, white lights snuffing out everywhere they went.

“The Ally’s gift,” Vaelin said.

“No,” Dahrena told him, “never a gift. A sickness, a plague. Like the Red Hand.”

“This is but a dream. How can I know this?”

“We know it.” She floated away from him, spreading her arms as more people appeared out of the surrounding blackness, forming a circle around them. They were mostly strangers but he recognised some. The sister from the Seventh Order who had conspired with Alucius in Varinshold. Marken was there too, smiling grimly behind his beard, and Aspect Grealin, still fat even here . . . And one other.

Caenis wore the garb of a brother of the Sixth Order, even though he had died Aspect of the Seventh. “Brother,” Vaelin said, reaching out to him but Caenis only smiled and inclined his head in fond recognition.

“We who lingered when you drew him from the Beyond,” Dahrena said. “It is not just his will that can bind us there. We spent our remaining strength in crafting this vision. It was all we had left to give.”

He saw the circle of souls fading, drifting into darkness, Caenis the last to go, his hand raised in reluctant farewell before the dark claimed it.

“So you are truly gone now?” he asked Dahrena. “Your souls vanished forever?”

“Soul is memory,” she told him, pressing herself to him again, arms enfolding his head. “You are my Beyond now, Vaelin. You and all those I loved, even those I fought. For me to endure, so must you.”

She drew back, hands gripping his face. “Remember, a plague like the Red Hand. And none who caught the Red Hand and lived ever caught it again. And now, you really must wake up.”

• • •

He awoke to raised voices. Lonak voices, angry and aggravatingly loud. He groaned as he rolled upright, his fingers instinctively exploring the growing lump on the back of his head. The voices stopped and he looked up to see Kiral and Alturk retreating from one another, the Tahlessa sparing him a reproving glance before moving to stand in front of the Ally’s slumped form. He seemed to be unconscious, head lolling forward as a trickle of blood fell from a gash on his forehead.

Orven stood close to Vaelin, his guardsmen all around, glaring at the assembled Sentar on the other side of the clearing. He discerned it had been but moments since Alturk had clubbed him senseless. Vaelin extended a hand to Orven, who obligingly hauled him upright. He walked to Alturk and gave a shallow bow. “My thanks, Tahlessa. Lord Orven, break camp. We still have a long way to go.”

• • •

More towns appeared along the course of the road the farther south they went. They were usually sprawling places, having long outgrown the protective walls of the pre-Imperial age. Most had clearly suffered riot and rebellion, a few were little more than blackened ruins, and fewer still had contrived to remain intact by virtue of newly raised walls and barricades, often held by armed townsfolk happy to launch arrows at strangers who ventured too close. Vaelin avoided them all, having no inclination to embroilment in unnecessary battle, though the Sentar often chafed at the need to suffer an unanswered challenge.