Prologue ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6 ... 7 ... 8 ... 9 ... 10 ... 11 ... 12 ... 13 ... 14 ... 15 ... 16 ... 17 ... 18 ... 19 ... 20 ... 21 ... 22 ... 23 ... 24 ... 25 ... 26 ... 27... 28... 29... 30 ... Epilouge ... Glossary

Chapter 3: Andelliza the Lady

Dirty rain spits down upon the dark city streets. Gaslight glints off a naked blade in the darkness.

Esmeree never sees them coming. The territory is known, familiar. This is Black Ember turf. She thought she was safe here. By all accounts she should have been. The boys attack silently, overwhelming her with surprise. A vicious blow to the head stuns her, and the lights of the night become blurry and indistinct. Rough arms wrap around her neck and legs and lift her off her feet.

Esmeree doesn’t lose consciousness, but she still doesn’t resist. She knows from past experience, doing so now would only bring on another beating. Instead, she bides her time, waiting for the opening she knows will come.

There are three of them. By their long braids, and the stink of beer on their clothes, they’re probably Brack.

The one not carrying her has a gully knife–he’s probably the leader–but when they attacked, he didn’t use it. He didn’t even threaten her with it, so she knows him to be a coward. Even now, through her half-closed eyes, she can see him looking around nervously, everywhere but at her.

It’s the biggest one carrying her feet that she worries about. Hanging from his belt is whatever heavy object he used to hit her on the head. He’s armed and willing to use it.

She relaxes as they manhandle her into an abandoned building, resisting her ember’s impulse to start healing her head wound. She needs to conserve its power. "Guide me," her ember seems to hiss, "Direct me. Unleash me." She silently whispers promises and urges patience.

They drop her on the floor and, thinking her unconscious, confer over her.

"Yä cuall! What the fuck are yä thinkin’, uh?" hisses Knife.

"Aw, c’mon. Lookit the boduus oainjyr," mutters Club, "The little dewines’s as peaceful as a kitten!"

"Yäh, nice," mumbles Knife, "But we got what we need, yäh? Sä what’re we doin’ in here? Let’s get movin’."

Club looks put out and angry. Knife’s in charge, but Esmeree bets that won’t last for much longer. "There’s na hurry," Club sulks, "They’re not knowin’ we’re here…" He lifts the edge of Esmeree’s smock with his toe and takes a peek at what’s underneath. "Mol!"

Knife licks his lips but can’t resist looking as well. "That graney beggar was bought, but we don’t know fer how long."

The third, the silent one, just watches like a lunatic. Esmeree worries about what he’s capable of.

Club leers at the others. "What do yä say? Let’s do this dewines inigena. She’s too mirain not tä taste. Some quick fun, and we get out, yäh?"

Knife looks about to object, but Club is already on his knees, eagerly spreading Esmeree’s legs and lifting up her smock. After another long look, he quickly begins undoing the ties on his trousers.

Esmeree groans, and the three boys freeze guiltily as she writhes slightly. Club fingers the grip of his cudgel, looking about ready to explode in violence. One of her hands touches her cheek; the other brushes again his arm. Eyes closed, her tongue licks her lips slowly. Club leans over her in lusty fascination, pressing his pelvis against her naked flesh, "Ah, lookit! The dewines is dreamin’ about me!"

Her eyes snap open, and she drives her hands upwards. Club shrieks as her thumbs plunge into his eyes. The nails of one hand nearly tear off an ear. Thick fluid spurts out of the eye sockets and runs down her arms. He instinctively pulls away, allowing her to hook an ankle across his neck and throw him backwards.

As Club falls, she leaps on him, scrabbling for his weapon. Caught off guard, Knife fumbles for his gully, but the third boy rushes her without hesitation. She kicks out, missing his knee by inches, and he falls on her, hands searching her face for something soft to grab and tear.

Knife grabs her by the hair, bringing his blade down towards her eyes, and her ember discharges with ferocious glee. The temperature of the room plunges, and instantly, frost covers nearly every surface. With a gasp, the boy flies backwards as though kicked in the chest by a horse, a clump of her hair still in his fist.

The third boy fights like a demon, beating her with feet and fists. He is much bigger and stronger than she is, and as Esmeree calls to her ember for help, there is no reply. The stone feels dead. Esmeree does what she can to protect her head with one arm as she searches for the club with the other.

Much to her relief, her hand closes around a handle, and she grabs and pulls. Club’s cudgel jerks free, and swinging it around, she hits the third boy in the face. Blood and teeth spray as the shattered jawbone bursts through his cheek. He spins around and collapses next to his friend.

Leaping to her feet, all she can see of Knife is his rapidly retreating back as he flees into the night.

Sniffing her bloody nose and dabbing at her tears, she limps over to the window and picks up Knife’s abandoned gully. Her breath heaves out of her lungs in great white clouds. Club is twitching where she left him, his eyes a bloody gelantinous mess. The other boy grunts in an agonized mindless way, his face looking inhuman.

The edge of the knife gleams in her eyes as she gets to work.

They were Crimson Rraakks. She wonders how three of them would have dared get this close to the Lady’s territory. In her 4 years in the Mill, no one has been so brazen in their challenge of the Lady’s power. Such an idea shocks her almost as much as the attack. After a search of the two bodies, she couldn’t find whatever it was the Mill beggar gave them. Their leader, Knife, must have been carrying it.

What frustrates her even more is now she cannot persuade her ember to heal herself. Stubbornly, it refuses to produce even the littlest tingle or spark of magic. A small voice in her head wonders, "Was that last act truly necessary? Did she really need to do that to those boys?" The voice sounds like Myrdd’s.

Esmeree grits her teeth as she limps through the night streets, desperately trying to outrun these thoughts, but she cannot escape them. It is Andelliza’s decree. The fate of those boys was set as soon as they attacked her.

She is already close to the Mill, and the fishers rummaging in the shadows eye her as she passes.

The voices plague her all the way to the Mill. A stick guarding the doors gawks at her as she enters, "Yä look like somethin’ spit up from the hells! Hard night, Easy?"

She tosses the pair of genitalia at his feet. "Two Rraakks. In the Foreman Neighborhoods. A third got away."

The stick grunts and scoops up the bloody scraps of flesh. They say Andelliza makes use of them; they say she uses them in some horrible black rite. The part of Esmeree that loves the old man Myrdd prefers not to know what she does with them; the part that lusts after Drake, however, aches to find out.

The main room is busy as usual. Standing on center stage, a newly converted Chroani refugee preaches the word of the Medianists to any who would listen. Esmeree finds his grasp of Medianist doctrine weak, especially his unenlightened views on Guiot the Virgin. The audience senses ineptitude, and the speaker’s face grows red and sweaty as he tries to shout over the fusillade of jeers and heckles coming in from the fishers. The room roars with laugher, but Esmeree is hardly in a mood to enjoy it.

She circles around the stage until Andelliza’s window is in view. There is a suggestion of movement in the darkness inside, but Esmeree cannot see anything for certain. "She’s got a fisher in there with her," a nearby boy mutters to her, following her stare, "She’ll be at it fer hours."

You can almost always rely on Andelliza to be in the Mill. She is ever-present, never sleeping, in stark contrast to the ephemeral Drake, who is almost never seen. He drifts through Andelliza’s chambers like a shadow, thrilling girls like Esmeree with only brief glimpses.

Esmeree cradles her cracked ribs and thinks about what to do. The fry next to her whistles appraisingly, "Wow! What messed yä up?"

Esmeree snarls, and her new knife materializes underneath his chin. "The body is bruised," she sneers, "but the gully still has an edge, uh?"

The boy smiles and backs away. Esmeree’s learned it is dangerous to show weakness to anyone in the Mill.

She stands and listens to the refugee for a long time, wondering what to do next. Her ribs grind together with each breath. Her nose is clogged with snot and blood, so she has to breathe through her mouth. One eye has nearly swollen closed, and she thinks those bastard Bracks might have broken a finger. And still her ember doesn’t obey her commands. With a shrug and a sigh, she limps out to the center of the room and screams, "Lady Andelliza!"

The rest of the room falls silent. Even the would-be proselytizer shuts up and backs away in rapt fascination. A direct plea to the Lady always promises good entertainment.

After a long pause, a bored voice answers, "Yes, fisher?"

In the silence of the room, weak, masculine yelps of pain drift down from the Lady’s window.

Esmeree struggles to speak in the way Myrdd taught her. "Lady! The Crimson Rraakks move in on more and more of your territory! We kill them whenever we meet, but still their insolence grows! Rumors are that a solution is in the making?" She pauses, and the hush lengthens. Fishers whisper in the wings, but she tries to ignore them. The Lady’s continued silence is a bad sign, so she hurries onwards, "The situation now is unacceptable! I now know they have a contact inside the Mill! I may have a solution for you, Lady! I request an audience, so I may explore it with you!"

The Lady answers almost immediately. "You deem yourself informed enough to consider yourself valuable in this matter? Interesting." The voice that comes from the window is mocking, but Esmeree reminds herself that the Lady’s tone is always mocking. "I gather you’ve grown some since you’ve joined us, so there is little risk of your intrusion through my stove?"

Esmeree blanches. She can’t believe the Lady would remember that, it was so long ago!

The Chroani fisher sneers at her, "’The silence of a woman is second only to the number of her children.’ Thus speaks Pennenc the Wise, Prophet of God!"

Esmeree’s just about had enough of idiots for the day. "Wrong, asshole," she snaps back. "It’s: ‘A Lady’s obedience lies second to her domesticity.’ And it isn’t about shuttin’ up and doin’ what yer told! It’s about doin’ what’s best fer the family, even if yer donios is a fuckin’ idiot!"

The fisher’s face flushes red with rage. "The words of Saint Paliesin are clear–"

"Paliesin was full of shit, and sä are yä! He was a sorry disciple for Pennenc and a worse interpreter! Plus, he was born 200 years after Pennenc died! God knows who changed and rewrote those words before Paliesin got around tä it! That translated EroBernd crap was dumbed-down fer mental lepers like yä! Yä want tä learn the words of Pennenc, yä should read it in its original Ehrech!"

The fisher is stunned as though Esmeree struck him across the face. Slowly, she realizes the absolute silence of the Mill. Turning around, she sees every person looking at her with suspicious surprise. It seems she just labeled herself a Medianist to everyone in the guild. "Damn that Myrdd," the voice in her head mutters, "Look what happens when you teach girls to read and write."

"Interesting," Andelliza finally breaks the silence. "Esmeree, you may come up."

Immediately, the Mill fills with a low murmur, as the fishers and sticks discuss this new turn of events. Keeping her head low, she shoulders past the silenced Chroani refugee and pushes her way through the press.

She takes the stairs slowly, painfully, wondering what Andelliza will do with her. Things seemed much simpler when she thought the Lady didn’t know who she was. Now she wonders if Andelliza has been watching her all this time. She hesitates at the top step. She wonders if Drake has been watching her too?

The waiting room outside Andelliza’s chambers is empty. While she’s never been included, she knows this is where Andelliza meets with the most important of sticks. This is where she and Drake tell the others of their plans for the Mill. Bay bricks lay stacked on a table in no danger of being stolen. Drake weeded out the stupid guild members a long time ago.

It is a long walk across the room to Andelliza’s chambers. The door stands ajar, waiting for her.

The room has changed much since the last time she saw it years ago. Tapestries soften the walls and floor. Two doors on opposite sides of the room lead to secret areas Esmeree has never seen. A table nearby bears the weight of more food than Esmeree will eat all year. Bottles of chilled Ehrech wine, hand-painted and wrapped in straw, sweat invitingly.

The couch seems cleaner, lusher. A perfect bare leg extends over it. Andelliza’s white skin seems to glow in the dim lamp light.

"Come here, Esmeree," Andelliza’s voice invites her to approach. Despite the cold and damp outside, the room is warm. The air is thick with the sour tang of sweat and sex.

As Esmeree nears, she sees the naked body of Andelliza’s currently favored fisher. He lays curled at the foot of her couch. He trembles in his exhausted sleep, occasionally whimpering in his dreams.

The Lady lays naked in the plush red of her lounge, and she smiles at Esmeree’s state. "How does life as a fisher treat you, child?"

Esmeree lifts her chin and sniffs. Now is not the time to show weakness. "I do my share. I take my share. We have business to discuss."

Andelliza frowns in an amused way. A finger finds a forgotten drop of man-juice on her inner thigh, and tasting it, she glances out her window. "We require music," she calls down, "Something soothing, yes?" She glances at Esmeree, who looks away.

Down in the main room, there is a commotion as sticks scramble to find someone, anyone who can fulfill the request.

"You claim to have knowledge of the Crimson Rraakks? You claim to have a solution for me?" She sits up slightly, her breasts swaying in an enticing way. "How sweet. Yes, we have business to discuss."

Esmeree steps forward, doing her best to stay focussed on the task at hand. "I know the Rraakks are workin’ with beggars within our Mill. I can only guess how they are helpin’ them."

Andelliza fixes Esmeree with a stare. "That’s the problem with beggars. They are easily bought." She sighs and glances out at the main room. "And what kind of information are they trafficking?"

Esmeree bows her head. "I don’t know. There were three of them. I searched two, but I couldn’t find anything."

After a long stare, Andelliza shrugs. "Maybe they were told the information and not given anything."

Esmeree nods. "It seemed important. They sounded really scared."

"Before or after you killed two of them?" Esmeree looks away and tries not to smile. The Lady sighs, "So, why do you want to be involved in this?"

Esmeree’s eyes snap up to stare at Andelliza with shock, and her body shudders with sudden fury. "Look at me!" Her hands press against her abused cheeks and her wrecked nose. "This is their handiwork! There were three of them, and this is what they did!"

Andelliza hardly glances at Esmeree and shrugs. "You are a fisher. You live in the street. You think you won’t get beat?"

Esmeree’s fists shake at Andelliza. "It doesn’t have to happen that way!"

The Lady’s eyebrows rise as Esmeree struggles out of her canvas smock. Throwing the garment to the floor, she stands naked and bruised before her. "Truly, while I have considered the possibility before," murmurs Andelliza, "I think I’ll wait for a time when you are of a more sound body."

"No!" Esmeree fights through the tears, pressing against her ember, "This is what I’m talking about! Drake has said it before! My ember is powerful!" Her fists beat against her unresponding ember.

Andelliza’s eye twitches slightly as she leans back into her lounge. "Your ember…"

Esmeree steps forward. "Yäh! But I can’t use it! It doesn’t obey me!"

The Lady frowns and quietly asks, almost to herself, "Obey you?"

"Yes!" Her eyes are furious, intent. Esmeree almost fails to realize that the Lady now refuses to meet her stare. "I tell it to do things! Things I know it can do! And nothing happens! Then it does stupid things on its own! I can’t control it."

Andelliza traces the line of one breast with a finger as she stares fixedly out the window. Her voice is distant. "How horrible it must be for you."

Esmeree kneels suddenly at the foot of the couch. Grabbing each of the Lady’s wrists, she presses Andelliza’s hands against the ember in her chest. "Please! You are powerful! The sticks say not even the wizards of the Medianists can match you!" Slowly, Andelliza’s eyes turn to meet Esmeree’s, and with a start, the girl realizes her proximity to her Lady and her uninvited contact. She lets go of the hands as though they burned her. "I’m sorry," she stammers, bowing her head, "I mean only to help you to imagine the possibilities! Train me, and I will serve you! Make me your apprentice! Help me tame my ember. Teach me your spells or help me create my own, and not even the snobby Medianists can stop you. The Rraakks will be less than the halogedig in the Heap!"

Andelliza sits up and leans close to Esmeree. She takes her by the back of her neck, pressing Esmeree’s face close to hers. Her hand caresses her shoulder, her breast, her belly. "So it’s control you seek? Power? And you expect me to teach you all my secrets?"

Esmeree suddenly feels uncomfortable with the Lady so close. The scent of her man is still on her skin and in her breath. Her breast brushes against Esmeree’s arm. "Nage," she says quietly, frightened, "You are the master, Lady. I am the apprentice. You teach only what you feel I am ready to learn. In return, I serve your needs as best as I am able."

"So, I get an apprentice?"

"Yes."

"You get my knowledge?"

"Yes."

"And secrets?"

"Yes!"

"And Drake?"

"Y–" Esmeree is left silenced, her mouth gaping open. Her face flushes.

The Lady smiles, touching the side of Esmeree’s face, running her fingers down to the ember between her tiny breasts. "Have you spoken to your old man about this?"

Esmeree blinks in stunned silence. She knows of Myrdd? "No…" She looks away, "He wouldn’t approve."

"Ah yes," the Lady chuckles, "Selling your soul to a Hells-damned witch. Not the sort of thing his good little Medianist maiden would do, yes?"

Esmeree nods silently. Andelliza laughs and smoothes the girl’s hair. "Very well. I accept you as my apprentice, but on one condition."

Esmeree looks up, wary surprise in her eyes. Andelliza touches her bruised nose with an index finger. "You must continue to learn from that old man. Should you ever neglect your lessons with him, I shall expel you from the Mill and from my care."

Esmeree blinks in confusion, and Andelliza shrugs, "In truth, I suspect the magic he holds may be more powerful than that of mine. Listen to him."

Esmeree nods, and in doing so, she realizes that the pounding in her sinuses has eased, as has the ache in her rips. The temperature around her skin has dropped drastically; goosebumps prickle her arms and legs. Touching her sides and face, she discovers that the Lady has somehow healed her of the Crimson Rraakk’s abuse. Before her eyes, her bruises shrink and then yellow into nonexistence. Sudden exhaustion dims her eyesight, as though her body has run a marathon in just a few seconds.

"This is magic, Esmeree," Andelliza says, "This is power. I will teach you the magic of the Stones."

"Yes, Lady," Esmeree murmurs, awestruck but sleepy. She hardly notices when Andelliza embraces her and lays her down on the couch. Nestled in the bosom of her Lady, Esmeree drifts off to sleep.

***

"No, you stupid girl! It is not a request!"

Esmeree slaps her hands back down on her legs in frustration. Only a small, smoky brazier lights Andelliza’s workroom. Sitting in front of it, Esmeree’s bare skin glows red. She sweats in the unnatural heat, concentrating on the task at hand.

Her ember stirs, responding from her unspoken request.

"No!" Andelliza sighs with exasperation. "Again, it is not a request!"

Esmeree pounds her fists against her knees and then buries her face in her hands. Tears of frustration squirt from her eyes. Never had she imagined summoning would be so difficult!

Smoke and darkness hide the walls of the room. Andelliza sits just within the reach of the small fire. Leaning forward, she shakes her head at Esmeree. "Your ember is your ember. Its power is your power."

Esmeree cries quietly. Andelliza continues calmly, "Do you ask your fingernail’s permission before you scratch an itch? Does your stomach require you to rub it or speak to it before you can eat? I think not."

Andelliza sits back into her chair. "Sit up, girl. Look at yourself."

Wiping her eyes, Esmeree straightens up and looks down at her body. Orange light flickers across the nubs of her breasts and the subtler rise of her ember between.

Andelliza insists on summoning in the nude. She says garments and other apparel only serve as distractions to her spell casting. While these first sessions are lessons in the most simple principals of summoning, they are also the most important. Summoning without the burden of clothing is apparently a good habit to get into. Andelliza is a perfectionist and insists that Esmeree not cut corners. Once she inferred to her that with the most difficult spells, orgies, alcohol, and drugs are frequently used to help focus the mind and build the necessary magical reserves. Esmeree looks forward to those lessons.

"Concentrate on the task at hand. Do not request anything from your ember. Do not think of it as something separate from you. Doing so is dangerous."

Touching her ember briefly, she looks over at Andelliza. "Dangerous?"

Andelliza’s hand flutters irritably. "Not necessarily in the physical or spiritual sense. But in terms of your studies in sorcery and your eventual control over your ember, it is very dangerous."

Her ember tingles. "Why?"

"Everything in this world has a spirit. Everything. Living things have more powerful spirits than dead or inanimate things, but even the lowest blade of grass or smallest pebble has a spirit–a soul–an anima. Without an anima, a thing wouldn’t exist. To destroy the spirit is to destroy the thing."

"And vice-versa?"

Andelliza smiles. "Yes. That is how practitioners of what the Medianists call Circle or Symbolic Magic slay their enemies. Destroying the spirit–or the mind–destroys the body."

Andelliza reaches out, and somehow across that distance, Esmeree feels her fingers running down her bare back. Even in this heat, a chill shudders down her spine. "Living things have the most powerful spirits because their anima interact with each other. When two spirits meet and affirm each other, both come away stronger."

"I don’t understand. How is it dangerous then–"

"By pretending your ember is separate from you, you are inappropriately strengthening its anima. Eventually, it will acquire an animus, a form of sentience, and you will lose all control. When this happens to a place, we say it is haunted. When it happens to people, we say they are insane or possessed. When it happens to an ember… well…"

"What?" The tingling has increased.

"Words like ‘cursed’ or ‘pariah’ or ‘damned’ come to mind. The ember becomes stronger–a homunculus–living within its host body, summoning on its own, without restraint or awareness. They cause plagues, firestorms, tornadoes. Wherever the person goes, everything is shattered." The Lady smiles coldly, "They are eventually, of course, hunted down and killed. In the Seven Kingdoms, the Inquisition is usually called in to administer an ordeal on the wretch first. You can imagine."

Esmeree stares blankly at her mistress.

"Or," she adds off-handedly, "The ember simply dies. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it sacrifices itself for the good of its simulacrum?"

Esmeree cups her ember with her hand, terror and confusion freezing all other thought. Andelliza sighs, "Are you ready to continue, apprentice?"

Esmeree’s eyes suddenly clear. "Lady, when those Rraakks jumped me, they used a word I didn’t know."

Esmeree can’t read her face, but she senses the Lady’s impatience. "So? There must be many words you don’t know."

"Have you ever heard the Brack word, dewines?"

Andelliza shifts slightly in her chair. "What?"

"Dewines. They called me a dewines. I’ve never heard that word before."

"Never heard of it. You know I don’t speak that filthy language. Go ask your old man." Andelliza’s eyes seem to glow in the darkness. "Now get your fucking hand off your ember and continue with your exercises."

© John Lawson 2001