The Dying Flame Page 5

  Her stomach turned at the smell but she forced herself to ignore it as best she could. She picked up the bucket and began to walk, trying not to slop the liquid onto her clothing or the floor.

  The next time she sensed someone coming she did not look for a corner to duck around, as she had done the previous times, but kept her gaze low and kept walking. She passed a pair of Confessors. She put all her effort into not looking, not reacting, and kept close to the wall, giving them room to pass her by. She allowed her thoughts to reach out for just a moment, and sensed their repulsion at her and what she carried. They felt not a shade of doubt as to what or who she was.

  Good. Better.

  She continued on.

  Her arm began to ache as she traced corridor after corridor. She began to wonder if she was walking in circles; everything looked and felt the same. There was something else that was confusing her too, something she caught, a sense on the air that made her feel as though she were sleep-walking, as though with each step she were growing number and more distant. She had to force herself to remember her purpose, to try to keep alive the spark of urgency that had driven her since her sister was taken. She had to remember Merryn.

  At last she found what she’d been hoping for. A figure approached, dressed in grey as she was, head down, walking quickly. Before the servant was able to pass her by, Orla called out.

  ‘Can you help me? I’ve taken a wrong turn.’

  The woman stopped, stood upright, and regarded Orla suspiciously. She was thin, with greying hair pulled back into a tight bun and dark rings under her eyes. She looked as though she had not seen daylight for a very long time.

  ‘Been carrying this bloody thing for miles,’ Orla said, trying to smile and indicating toward the bucket. ‘I can’t figure out how to get back to the tanks to empty it.’

  ‘Follow me,’ the woman said, and without anything further she turned and began to lead the way.

  Orla felt a surge of relief. She would reach the tanks. She would start again. She would follow Ani’s instructions, she would find Rian. She would find Merryn.

  She felt like anything was possible.

  ✤

  Once she had re-oriented herself, she reached Rian’s door more quickly than she’d expected. She paused, hoping desperately that she was in the right place. She raised a hand and knocked the series Ani had taught her. There was a long moment’s silence and she found herself holding her breath, trying to sense what was coming. Then the door opened.

  The girl she saw on the other side looked nothing like Orla had imagined she would. She was dressed in identical garb to Orla, but she looked so unremarkable, so bland. Orla wondered if she’d come to the right place.

  ‘Rian?’ she asked in a whisper. The girl glanced quickly left and right, to confirm that Orla was indeed alone, and then she nodded. She opened the door wider and Orla passed through. Orla saw that she was in a small chamber, barely the size of a storage cupboard, with a bed-mat laid out along one wall and a small cushion and lamp across from it.

  ‘Ani sent me,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve not seen you before,’ Rian stared at her, arms crossed over her chest.

  ‘I only just met Ani yesterday. I agreed to carry a message for her and she agreed to help me find my sister.’

  ‘Your sister?’

  ‘Her name is Merryn. She was taken by the Confessors two days ago. She’s here somewhere, I just have to find her.’

  Rian coughed a laugh. ‘Oh, finding her will be easy enough. The new ones, the uncut they call them, are all kept together, penned like sheep, for at least a week. There’s a room, I can take you there I suppose. I’m going there myself. But I do not know what plan you might be hatching for your sister’s escape. I can tell you already it won’t work.’

  Orla swallowed.

  ‘The message, then?’ Rian said, extending a hand.

  Orla felt for the lump in the hem of her garment. ‘Do you have scissors?’ she asked. ‘Or a knife?’

  Rian laughed again and Orla prickled with irritation.

  ‘The Confessors tend to keep all of the sharp pointy things to themselves,’ Rian said.

  Orla ignored her and pulled at the stitching until it tore. She felt around until she caught the edge of the package. Orla extracted it and passed it across to Rian, wondering what thing so small could have been worth the trouble it took to get it here.

  She watched as Rian carefully unfolded the paper.

  Orla caught sight of two words scrawled there and something else, something glinting. In that moment, she sensed the object’s purpose and shuddered.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I thought I was bringing you something to use against the Confessors. I didn’t realise…’

  Rian palmed the wire and tossed the scrap of paper onto the open flame of the lamp where it flared for a moment and then disintegrated.

  ‘Denying the Confessors information is the whole reason I’m here. Ani and her operation would be sunk a dozen times over without me. Come on then. Let’s go find your sister.’

  Chapter eleven

  Orla’s mind raced as she followed Rian down the long corridor.

  Peren Drywen

  She heard the name repeated, over and over, like a chime in Rian’s mind. She saw his face, too. Rian had known him, before she’d entered the Vaults, before he’d been taken by the Confessors. He was young, not much older than Merryn. He had dark blonde hair and freckles. He limped from being kicked by a horse when he was little. When he was scared, he avoided people’s eyes.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ Orla said, a sick feeling growing inside her.

  Rian did not pause. She just hissed, without turning, ‘Do. Not. Speak. Do you want to get us both killed and your sister besides?’

  ‘He’s only a child.’

  ‘Ani has judged him a liability.’

  ‘Does he deserve to die?’

  Finally, Rian stopped. She turned on Orla with a look so fierce it was searing.

  ‘Do you know what the Confessors will do to a boy like him? They’ll carve him up. He will suffer for what will feel like eternity. And while he suffers, he’ll talk. He’ll give up those he loves to these monsters in the hope the pain will end. And then, when it does, when he’s returned to the world beyond these walls, he will live with the hell of knowing that what he suffered will be inflicted on them too, and that it will be his fault. It’s a mercy, to end it now.’

  Orla swallowed.

  ‘You’re not here. You do not know,’ Rian spat, then turned and continued on. A few steps further, she slowed and paused. She turned again, and this time a sly, knowing look occupied her face.

  ‘How do you know he is only a child? Ani would never have said.’

  Orla swallowed. Rian stared and there was something in her stare that compelled Orla, as though she were being pulled along in a deep undertow, dragged in a direction that she never intended to travel. She felt dizzy.

  ‘I can… see people’s thoughts, I sense their feelings.’ The words came from her mouth against her own will.

  ‘And your sister?’

  Orla shook her head wildly. ‘No, nothing like that. Merryn has no skill. It’s only me. And she doesn’t know. Nobody does.’

  ‘Ani certainly didn’t or she’d never have sent you here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If she’d even got the slightest whiff of a mage-born she’d have snapped you up. As I well know.’ And Rian smiled that same sly smile again.

  ‘What are you… what can you…?’

  ‘You shall see,’ Rian said. ‘Come.’

  ✤

  Orla followed Rian down a long flight of stairs. A few small windows were cut into the stone, and though the glass was thick and dusty Orla could just make out daylight. How strange it was to think that outside these walls it was just another day. Orla felt an ache. Merryn should be in classes today, not locked up in the Vaults awaiting punishment. And Orla should be working. Joseph would be
wondering where she was. Then, with a few more steps, they were below the level of the light. They continued down. They passed guards – they were Uruhenshi, black-cloaked, their chests emblazoned with the watching eye – but nobody questioned them. She followed Rian down another long corridor; this one had an enclosed, heavy, damp feeling. The floor was worn by footsteps and the air was thick with lamp-smoke. Orla tasted the tang of fear.

  ‘The cells,’ Rian whispered. Barred doors enclosed small, dark rooms, each occupied by a crumpled, silent figure. Orla let herself feel for a few seconds, steadying herself beforehand so as not to take the impact unprepared. All around her was a deadening horror. Everything was grey. There was pain, fear, anguish, but it was buried beneath something else, something that made the Penitents unable to resist, unable to keep their minds strong.

  ‘What have they done to them?’ she whispered.

  ‘There’s a drug,’ Rian said. ‘They’re given it when they first arrive. It takes away their hope. It makes their beliefs more… malleable.’ The horror of it sank into Orla’s bones. ‘Will your sister be like this? Yes. Most likely.’ Rian did not even slow her steps as she answered Orla’s unasked question.

  They turned a corner and Orla froze as she heard footsteps and sensed – no, it could not be. Her heart raced in panic. It was unmistakeable. The pattern of thoughts was branded into her memory. It was the same man who had taken Merryn, who had stood, masked, in her home and waited for her little sister and then taken her to this place.

  She must not be recognised. If he saw her here and realised who she was, that would be a disaster for her and even worse for Merryn. She pulled the hood further down over her head and kept her eyes trained on the ground. She would do nothing, say nothing, just as Ani had instructed her.

  The prayers must have finished, Orla guessed, because now they faced a long line of Confessors walking two abreast through the tunnel. She sensed Rian tense. So even she was afraid of them. It only made Orla’s own terror worse. She rhymed her steps to Rian’s as they approached the group.

  The man was at the front and Orla saw that even now as he walked down the bare stone corridor he was fingering the flail that hung at his side. She sensed his mind – he was hungry, grasping, righteous. He believed, she realised. He actually believed in this God Assayn that he spoke of, the God of Broken Things, and that he was its true servant. Orla held her breath and her skin rose in goosebumps as the man approached.

  His face was uncovered. She tried to look away but was drawn to see – who was this man? For he was just a man. Who was he really? His shaved head looked cratered and uneven, his cheeks were hollows and his eyes pools of darkness. His skin was intricately scarred.

  The group had almost passed her when she heard his voice.

  ‘Wait.’

  She felt Rian freeze. Orla took a step back to stand beside Rian, keeping her eyes on the ground. Rian did not speak, but waited.

  He walked towards them, each step echoing in the stone hallway. Orla felt herself beginning to shake.

  ‘Name your business in the Bowels.’

  ‘Brother Emrand requested that I bring the prisoners water.’ Rian’s voice sounded so different to when she’d spoken to Orla. How did she do that, Orla wondered? Every ounce of initiative, every ounce of threat, of independent thought, had been drained from her tone. Orla glanced at her. She even looked different. There was a dullness to her features that made her difficult to focus on. It was as though something was preventing her from putting the elements together that formed Rian’s face.

  She’s doing this somehow, Orla realised. This is her power. To be unnoticeable.

  ‘And you?’

  Orla started. She swallowed and tried not to betray any emotion.

  Rian spoke quickly. ‘My sister is a mute. Her speech was taken by the Plague of Embers two years gone.’

  The Confessor took a step closer. Orla sensed his gaze on her. He was studying her face. She held herself steady although her heart was pounding and her palms were slick with sweat.

  Then he turned and swept away once more, followed by the others.

  Orla stood, unmoving, waiting, until the Confessors were gone, until the sound of their footsteps had faded and every remnant of their thoughts was dissipated.

  ‘Who was he?’ she whispered.

  ‘Him?’ The usual bite had returned to Rian’s voice. ‘That’s Piroxi. Chief bastard. Come on. We’d better keep moving.’

  ✤

  The guard opened the outer door without question as they approached. For a moment Orla thought she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to enter. The fear shimmered in the air and it melded with the smells of urine and sweat, and the sound of people crying and moaning and praying.

  ‘Just a couple of days and already they’re losing it,’ Rian muttered.

  ‘You think you wouldn’t?’ Orla said, before she could stop herself. There was something in Rian’s demeanour that infuriated her – she was so arrogant, so cynical. She was meant to be here to help these people. Surely she had at least some little sympathy for them?

  ‘I know I wouldn’t.’

  And then Orla had that sense again, like a tugging at her mind, a sense that forced her this time to turn her head, to look directly at Rian, who smiled.

  ‘You wish to know my power? I am a cryptomage. I can change my appearance, change how I am perceived. The only person in the world who knew of my power was a boy I loved. He was captured by the Confessors and gave me away. I was held in the Vaults for months before I was finally released to die alone. Ani saved me,’ she laughed and the laugh was bitter. ‘Or that is what she calls it anyway. I am part of her collection. Do you wish to see my true face? They tried particularly hard to break me.’

  Orla could not speak. She could not look away. She sensed a great darkness descending and then saw – she gasped. Her vision blurred, shifted, and before her stood a girl who had been damaged almost beyond all recognition. She was missing one ear and the other was a ragged stump. Part of her face was burned so it looked to be almost melted. The flesh that was not burned had been scarred terribly, worse than anything Orla had ever seen.

  And then, in an instant, it shifted again and all Orla saw before her was the unremarkable girl who had answered the door to her a matter of hours ago.

  ‘Does that answer your question?’

  Rian put the key in the lock and turned it, then pushed the door open.

  Orla followed her in.

  Chapter twelve

  It was dark and the air was thick from too many living beings cramped in too small a space. The room was unlit, but Orla could just make out, from the wash of lamplight outside, dozens of faces turned to look at them.

  She wanted to find her sister that instant, to call her name, but she still had no idea how she would get her out. Beyond this inner door was the outer door, which was guarded. Beyond that the Confessors roamed like birds of prey, sharp-eyed and predatory. It had taken time for Ani to perfect Orla’s disguise, and she’d already had what she needed – the robes, the heavy chain and medallion that she’d hung around Orla’s neck. Orla had no disguise for her sister. And Merryn’s hair would already have been shorn. Merryn would be unmistakeably a Penitent. Orla’s mind was racing. She needed more time. Perhaps if Rian would help her she could devise a plan, but if she tried to take Merryn now they’d both be caught, and the Gods protect them then…

  Beside her, Rian struck a match and a lamp flickered alight.

  ‘Help me, help me, help me,’ a woman moaned nearby, while an elderly man muttered curses and expletives in a far corner. A young child cried, relentless, unheeded.

  ‘Merryn?’

  Orla looked into the room but there were too many faces, too many minds. Too much desperation and hopelessness. It seemed to go on forever. It was infecting her, part of her mind managed to realise. The drug that had dulled their senses was dulling hers too; she could not help it. She absorbed the effects as she absorbed their thoughts.
She tried to pull herself back.

  ‘Peren Drywen,’ Rian said and her voice broke through the haze and brought Orla back to the present. She remembered why they were here.

  ‘Please, Rian. There must be some other way…’

  Rian glanced at her with an expression of utter contempt, then looked back into the space before them. She took a step forward, into the darkness. ‘Peren? Ani sent me. I’m here to help you.’ Her voice was so soothing, so enticing.

  ‘I’m here,’ Orla saw the boy standing, his face like a pale moon in the darkness. He was raising a hand. ‘I knew someone would come. I knew she wouldn’t leave me like this.’

  And then, as quick as thought, Rian was striding through the room towards the boy who watched her with an expression of relief and joy.

  It was over in just a moment. The wire was a flicker in the lamplight and then Orla saw a line of darkness snake the boy’s throat, and then, a moment later, the blood began. Pouring, sheeting, gushing, covering his chest, pooling in darkness on the floor. The boy clutched at himself and tried to speak. He looked at Rian with disbelief.

  Rian stood back to avoid the blood. ‘This is the only help Ani could give. You served well, Peren. I am sorry.’

  Around them people cried and tried to move away, but the drug must have deadened their senses for there was not the outcry that Orla would have expected. Their fear felt heavy, like in a nightmare when you know you must run but cannot move. And then Orla felt it: the boy’s terror softening into darkness, an instant of relief and then, a shiver of power moved through her and she knew the boy was gone. Her mind was clear. She saw her sister, who was sitting on the floor, staring blankly. She was wearing tattered grey robes and her eyes looked huge from the drugs and from her newly-shaved head. She was picking listlessly at a scab on her knee.

  ‘Merryn!’ Orla called. She crossed the room to meet her, stepping over people who were lying, crawling, crying, grabbing at her legs as she walked.