Stands a Shadow

EPILOGUE

Friends with Boats

It was a sound like no other, the roar of a skyship’s burning tubes. It filled the air while blanketing all other noises, so that after a while, when the ears had grown used it, it became a kind of silence.

Ash pressed forwards against the rail as the skyship began a slow circle above the monastery grounds. His grip tightened as he looked down on the small woodland of mali trees with their copper leaves covered in snow, and the stark black rectangle of ruins that lay at the heart of them like the stamp of some wrathful deity.

Amongst the thinning outskirts of the woodland, canvas tents stood in a sprawling camp with smoke smearing from their metal chimney pipes.

‘All gone, you said,’ remarked Meer the monk. ‘You recall?’

Ash could only stare in astonishment.

He heard a cane rapping against the decking as Coya came to join them both.

‘My spirits lift to see that there are survivors,’ he remarked, cheerfully, and then turned towards the captain of the ship, standing on the quarterdeck with his pilot. Both of them were discussing where they should land.

He rapped his cane loudly against the planking, trying to be heard above the burners.

‘Quickly now, Ronson. Bring us down!’

Ash jumped to the ground even before the ship had touched down on the snow, and a moment before the ship’s boys vaulted clear to tether the ship with stakes and ropes, their clothes and hair blowing in the wind.

Around him, the high mountain valley lay beneath a carpet of white. A pica called out from somewhere, cackling to itself as though at some dirty joke. He stood for a moment, watching the outlines of the distant, heaving tents. He stroked the hilt of his sheathed sword with his thumb.

A few hesitant steps, and then Ash was striding towards them with his blood already starting to rise.

He heard voices suddenly raised, people arguing, as he neared the closest tent, its sloped roof bulging with snowfall. Ash stepped around to the entrance. At the same moment Baracha stepped out with a scowl on his tattoo-covered face.

The big Alhazii froze in surprise, a curious display of expressions passing across his face – surprise, anger, confusion, and then, at last – relief.

‘You old bastard!’ he exclaimed, and seized him by the shoulders and shook him before Ash could respond.

Behind Baracha, he saw Serese and Aleas sitting on rough cots inside the tent with playing cards in their hands, their mouths gaping. ‘Ash!’ they both exclaimed, and rushed to greet him.

Warmth filled his body as they embraced. At last he broke clear of them, uncomfortable with their open displays of emotion. He nodded to the stump of Baracha’s left arm, wrapped now in a leather binding. ‘It healed well, then?’

‘Aye, well enough. Itches like the damned, though.’

Yes, thought Ash, and was reminded of Osho and his own missing limb, scratching at a wooden leg that his memory still thought to be flesh.

All at once they started to talk across each other. Ash waved their questions aside. ‘Tell me,’ he said, unable to contain himself any longer. ‘The urn I gave you, is it still safe?’

‘Of course,’ rumbled Baracha. ‘I gave it to Aleas to look after.’

Aleas went and drew the urn of ashes out from beneath his cot. Relief flooded Ash so entirely that for a moment his body trembled.

‘Come,’ said Baracha. ‘We must bring you to the others!’

‘You heard what happened, then?’ Baracha asked over his shoulder as he led the way.

‘From our agent in Khos.’

‘We lost half our people in the attack. When Osho realized the situation was hopeless, he ordered everyone he could down into the watching-house. The Mannians left without knowing they were even there.’

Ash stopped with his boots deep in the snow. He could feel fines of ash in his nostrils now.

‘Osho. How did he die?’

Baracha paused for a moment before he turned to face him.

‘We found him at the gates surrounded by the others. They made a last stand there, so the rest of us could make it down below.’

‘And Kosh?’

‘He’s thinner than he used to be. And drinking more than ever.’

‘He lives?’

‘Come see.’

It was more than Ash could have hoped for – another steamy tent, and Kosh sitting on a cot talking to a group of apprentices.

His old comrade opened his mouth wide, then hurried across to him, his eyes sparkling. ‘You’re alive,’ he breathed in Honshu, and he grasped Ash with an outstretched hand, as though to confirm his existence.

‘It’s good to see you, old friend,’ Ash said as they embraced. ‘Damned good to see you all.’

In the largest tent of the camp, the remaining Roshun gathered in raucous excitement. Even the Seer came down from his shack to join them, and greeted Ash kindly.

There were twenty-four survivors in all, many of them apprentices or the youngest Roshun of the order. It had mostly been the older hands who had stood at the gates and fought to buy them some time. He saw Stretch of the Green Isles there amongst them, and wily Hull, and the two Nevares brothers, sitting together as always.

They stoked the fire in the central pit higher as the wind howled outside. Alcohol was produced and enough food for a feast. It seemed they were well enough stocked. Baracha explained they had been bringing up supplies from Cheem Port, while they waited for the return of those few Roshun remaining in the field so that they could decide on what to do next. Opinions were still divided. The younger survivors wished to declare vendetta against the empire of Mann, never mind that the Roshun code forbade such a thing. Others, like Baracha, thought they could rebuild elsewhere and carry on, if only a safe location could be found.

Ash wondered how many remained to be swayed.

When Meer and Coya finally arrived, Ash stood quickly to introduce them. Meer smiled, while Coya, stooped over his cane, nodded in greeting.

‘These are friends,’ Ash told them all. ‘They have come to make us an offer.’

Around the tent the Roshun shifted uncomfortably.

‘And what is this offer?’ Aleas asked him.

As Coya opened his mouth to speak, Ash shook his head. ‘Not here.’

And he stepped outside, knowing they would all follow him.

Ash stopped before the ruins with a thousand impressions numbing him. For a long time he simply stared across it, this rubble that was the burial mound of his home, his friends.

Behind him, he heard the Roshun gather.

‘ Tell them,’ Ash barked over his shoulder.

He didn’t listen as Coya began to address them. Instead he bent down and studied the particles of ash dancing and racing in the breeze. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, he stabbed his splayed fingers into the surface of ash and rubble, and drew them out again slowly.

Ash drew his fingers along his skull, down his face, all the way to the bottom of his neck. Only then did he turn to face the gathering.

‘Where are you based?’ Baracha was asking Coya. ‘Where do you work from?’

‘From the Free Ports, mostly.’

‘So you are Mercians then?’

‘Most of us. Though by no means all.’

‘And explain to us again, what it is that you do?’

Coya tilted his head and looked to Meer. ‘We fight against…’ the monk began, then spread his arms apart, suddenly awkward, and brought his hands together in a clap. ‘Concentrations of power, I suppose you could say.’

‘And the Mannians?’ asked Aleas, keenly. ‘You fight the Mannians?’

‘Of course.’

Kosh spoke up then. ‘So you want us to come and work for you?’

Meer sniffed a breath of air, looked at the sky above their heads for a moment. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We wish to ask if you are ready to choose sides yet.’

‘You have us wrong,’ spoke up the old Seer in his quiet voice. ‘Roshun do not choose sides.’

‘Then perhaps it’s time you became something else,’ replied Coya. ‘Something new. All things change after all, do they not?’

Ash watched the Roshun closely, the wind tugging at their hair and their robes, the boughs swaying all around them, spilling snow. They sensed he was waiting to speak. One by one they turned and gave him their attention.

‘Sato was built by exiles fleeing from defeat,’ he said to them all. ‘Now we find ourselves exiles once more.’

He stepped forwards, so that he stood in the midst of them. He met the Seer’s gaze. ‘Do we run again, and hide?’ he asked of the gathering. ‘Or do we honour those we have lost here, by fighting for something that is worthy? Even if we must choose a side in doing so, even if we no longer remain Roshun? Well I tell you now. It is what I would have us do.’

The wind gusted, and a stream of fine ash sifted across the surface of trampled snow around their feet. He saw their heads turn to the ruins of Sato, knew in that moment which way their decision would fall.

Ash walked away then, for the rest was only talk.

In the large tent that evening, the Roshun sat around the fire with the canvas sides buffeting in the wind to celebrate the reunion of old friends, their talk loud as Ash and Kosh sat together watching the flames.

Kosh produced a bottle of Cheem Fire, forcing a groan of surprise from Ash’s throat.

‘I purchased it in hope of your return,’ he said in Honshu. ‘Let us enjoy a drink for old time’s sake.’ He was still bright eyed, still patting him occasionally with a hand. Kosh seemed a different man from when Ash had last talked with him. He could see it in the slackness of his skin, the lines carved even deeper than before, his gaze less intent, his voice subdued. Something in Kosh had broken in some subtle way.

It grew hot in the tent, with so many bodies pressed together and the logs flaring into flames. Ash relaxed into it all like a steaming bath.

‘Tell me,’ said Kosh. ‘The Matriarch. Did you-’

Ash shook his head.

‘Good. Then we’ll speak of it no further. So then. You think we should trust these Mercians?’

‘They’re good people. And their offer is a sound one. We can help down there, in the Free Ports.’

‘I thought we’d seen the last of lost causes,’ said Kosh drily, and he looked across at Coya and the laughing monk, his drink forgotten for a moment.

Give him time, thought Ash, knowing his old friend only too well.

‘You should hear the monk’s stories,’ he tried, watching Meer too. ‘He has travelled far.’

‘Further than us? Surely not.’

‘He tells me he’s been to the Isles of Sky and back.’

‘That far?’ replied Kosh with a grudging nod of his head.

‘The old Seer has a tale himself,’ Kosh said. ‘You recall Che, our mysterious disappearing apprentice? He says the man came to him on the night of the attack. That he saved his life by hiding him away.’

Ash gave him a startled glance. ‘A strange tale,’ he replied. He took a deep drink, felt the burn of it deep in his stomach. He wondered what the young Diplomat was doing now, whether he was even still alive.

He was surprised to find that he wished him well. His mind felt clear at long last. His heart open.

Ash took in the gathering of Roshun, noticing the absences within the group, those they had lost, men he had shared half his life with here in the cold mountains of Cheem.

‘I thought you all gone,’ he confessed.

‘Aye, well we were luckier than we deserved. I’m sorry, by the way. I was grieved when I heard of your own loss. The boy deserved better than that.’

Another long drink.

‘It isn’t finished yet,’ he said, and he leaned closer so that Kosh could hear him against the noise of the celebrations. ‘There may be a way, my friend.’

‘A way?’

‘Of bringing Nico back.’

Kosh studied him carefully for signs of illness. He blinked, not knowing what to make of his words. ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

‘Meer knows a way. If we agree to join them, he will show me how.’

‘And you really believe such a thing can be possible?’

‘No, not here. But in the Isles of Sky…’

‘A way of raising the dead? Please.’

He knew how it must sound to his old friend. He offered an awkward smile.

‘You’re leaving us again,’ Kosh realized with a start. ‘After all your talk of helping the Free Ports, you’re leaving again.’

‘Only for a while. But it will be easier now, knowing I may at least have something to return to.’

Kosh poured him another drink, thinking it over. He shook his head fast as though dispelling all the thoughts in his head, then raised his mug and clinked it against the one in Ash’s hand, some of the Cheem Fire sloshing out onto their hands.

‘With heart,’ he declared.

They both leaned back, content to share each other’s companionship in silence.

Meer was telling his tales by the fire next to Coya and the Seer. The men were drunk already. They all were drunk already.

Baracha sat next to his daughter, talking with her freely. Aleas laughed at something, his mouth opened wide, looking to the young apprentice Flores to share in his delight.

Ash settled back in comfort, his eyes gazing deep into the flames. For a moment, in his mind, he thought he heard another young man’s laughter, the memory of it, at least.

He tilted his head to one side, in hope of hearing it again.