CHAPTER NINE - THE PYRIAD

“Didn't your father say to lift off?” Sorcha protested, but DeSilva silenced her with a kiss.

“Yes, and I am, I just needed to do that first,” he kissed her again. “And suggest you get some rest down here while I work out what I'm doing with the burner. You'll know when we're off, I'm sure.”

“I want to see,” Sorcha said, but sat on the bed nonetheless to collect herself. “You go, I'll be up in a minute.”

DeSilva nodded and left her alone, heading back up on deck to attempt get the ship underway. She sat on the bunk for what felt like a long time, trying to collect her thoughts and finding very little to gather. The cabin seemed strangely desolate now, far removed from the snug warmth she and DeSilva had enjoyed. Sorcha shivered, unable to focus either on her thoughts or upon her memories of the hour she and DeSilva had spent there alone.

At length she stood up and went back on deck, where she found DeSilva fiddling with the burner. His father was in the bows, talking with Khyle Tarn. Sorcha glanced their way once to see DeKellia kneeling beside the wounded Hrin warrior, who lay slumped against the ship's rail. Then DeSilva looked up and saw her.

“Good timing, just about to start.”

She saw now that he had taken off his enchanted ring and positioned it in the narrow flume of the burner, where the flame of the coals below met the fuel outlet. Sorcha was only vaguely aware that the pipes on the burner pumped a highly flammable accelerant up from a large brass tank in the hold.

As she approached, DeSilva adjusted the fuel valve a final time, then settled his foot on the pedal at the base of the device. The main belly of the burner was already alight, a handful of coals glowing in readiness. DeSilva applied his foot to the pedal, and the burner made a faint whistling noise before flames leapt up from the coals to ignite the pilot light.

Sorcha had seen this procedure already and been impressed enough with the jet of blue fire to result. This time, the effect was far more spectacular. A bolt of golden flame lanced upwards, the rush of ignition resolving into a sound like laughter before the Pyriad, the spirit of the Dancing Ring, took form above the burner. Her mere presence swelled the balloon above with hot air, lifting the airship ponderously off its keel. She hovered large as life, the shape of a woman formed of living golden fire. Volcanic flesh bright as iron from a forge formed perfect feminine curves, naked but for the nimbus of flames that danced around her like infernal harem silks. Her eyes were incandescent orbs of fire like miniature suns; her hair was a flickering cascade of multicoloured flames. When she spoke, her voice was the girlish laughter of a mischievous flame burning for sheer pleasure of its nature.

“Oh, Monte, it's been so long since you let me out! I've been so bored, and so small!”

“Well, I don't often find a fire big enough and...”

“Oh nonsense,” the Pyriad pouted. “You light fires all the time, you set light to a whole city once, but did you call me out? I'd have had such fun...”

“Sorry, it never occurred to me, but...”

“Typical.” The Pyriad rolled her eyes, then turned her attention to Sorcha. “Hello. Is this the reason you've been neglecting me, Monte?”

“No, no... to be honest I thought you'd want to be left alone with Stantine Fenn and...”

“Oh, he's so stuffy!” The Pyriad complained. “He's sweet in his own way, but hardly prince charming. Not like you, Monte...”

Sorcha had witnessed magic before, but the Pyriad in her current form ranked highly even on the list of terrifying entities she had seen invoked. She hid, as discretely as she could, behind DeSilva's shoulder and whispered, “Monte, who's Stantine whatever-you-said?”

“Fenn. He's the other demon that lives in the ring,” he replied. “Look.”

Sorcha glanced at the burner, and saw that the Dancing Ring, which usually appeared as a simple ruby and only occasionally revealed its inner fire, now blazed with an angry white argence so bright it seemed to bleed into Sorcha's other senses, the light tingling on her skin and buzzing in her ears, blotting out even her thoughts with its intensity.

“Why doesn't he come out?” Sorcha asked.

She spoke in a whisper, but nevertheless the Pyriad heard her and replied, “Oh, he's sulking; I told him I was going out to play with Monte.”

“We don't want him to come out,” DeSilva said. “Trust me.”

“What are we going to play?” The Pyriad asked, ignoring DeSilva and Sorcha's exchange. “I'm fed up with dancing, it's all Fenn wants to do and he's so very bad at it.”

“I found you a toy,” DeSilva said, indicating the airship.

The Pyriad's bright brows dimmed slightly in consternation. “Monte, it's a ship; all I can do is burn it and then we'll be in the water, that's no fun at all!”

“Look again,” DeSilva grinned, baring his Kraagish fangs.

The Pyriad made a show of peering around, only belatedly noticing the obvious. When she did so, she squealed in ecstatic delight, a sound like superheated air hissing under high pressure.

“Oh, we're flying! Monte that's marvellous, I had no idea ships could do that!”

“They can't; you're doing it. See the balloon? That catches your heat and lifts the ship. You can fly us anywhere we need to go.”

The Pyriad clapped her hands in a shower of sparks, then paused suspiciously. “Wait a minute... anywhere who wants to go?”

“Anywhere you want to go, obviously,” DeSilva amended hastily. “But I'd rather hoped you might be persuaded to go south-east. There are forests there, for example...”

“A forest?” The Pyriad's face lit up even more brightly. “Not a pine forest, by any chance?”

“I wouldn't be at all surprised,” DeSilva agreed. “Lot of pine south-east of here.”

The Pyriad's infernal eyes gleamed like an arsonist studying a flame. “Oooh... pine burns wonderfully, I could set the whole forest ablaze and just lie on it, getting bigger and bigger...”

Even as she spoke, her heat magnified, and the airship's ascent increased. They were already heading roughly south with the wind; the Pyriad leant eastwards as if yearning towards the forests of alleged pine, and the ship swung in that direction, bearing now south-east.

The wind on deck increased as they gained altitude, but the Pyriad blazed too brightly for anyone aboard to be cold. Sorcha hung onto DeSilva and braced her feet, shouting directly in his ear to be heard above the rising wind.

“Monte, won't she set the ship on fire?”

“I shouldn't think so,” he yelled back, “the thing's designed to have a whacking great fireball hanging above it.”

Even as they spoke, an unforeseen danger presented; the Pyriad gave a sudden shrill yelp and flickered, her light diminishing momentarily. A moment later, Sorcha swooned against DeSilva's shoulder, her ears popping and the blood thundering in her ears.

“Monte, I can't breathe, it's like wearing that corset again...”

“Is this what it felt like?” DeSilva was himself leaning on the stump of the mainmast that stood beside the burner, struggling for breath. “Wait, let me think about it...”

The answer came of its own accord; the Pyriad halved suddenly in size and the airship dropped a dozen feet. As soon as it did so, the Pyriad blazed back again to her full life-size.

“It's the air!” DeSilva declared, snapping his fingers in triumph. “There's not enough air higher up, there's a limit to how high we can go because the fire won't burn without air! Ha! Now why didn't Guillemot devise some way around that...” he had all but forgotten Sorcha, still slumped against him and trying to get enough of the thin air into her lungs to stand unaided. The airship continued to bob and rock alarmingly, rising and falling as if on an angry sea while the Pyriad grew and shrank accordingly.

“Hey!” DeSilva yelled. “Try and hold us steady, that's part of the game!”

“Oh, besoms and beeswax!” the Pyriad swore, these being highly flammable. “Why such a hard game?”

“It'll be worth it, I promise; find a good height and head southeast, we'll find you a nice patch of pine or something!”

The Pyriad made an effort to concentrate; gradually, the turbulence lessened and the airship's flight grew steadier.

“Oh, this is fun!” the fire-sprite trilled above the wind.

Sorcha tried to speak to DeSilva, but the wind was too loud, and she feared to be overheard by the Pyriad in what she had to say. After several attempts, she succeeded in dragging DeSilva reluctantly away from the burner.

“Monte, you can't let her loose on a forest, she'll burn everything for miles around!”

“Well of course I know that,” he replied, “I'm not actually going to let her do it, but for Haroum's sake don't tell her so, she's completely insane.”

“What about the other one, Stantine Fenn or whatever it was?”

“Trust me, it's all under control, there's nothing to worry... holy shit, Khyle!”

Even as DeSilva swore, Sorcha looked up in time to see Khyle Tarn throw himself off the ship's rail. Sorcha and DeSilva ran, stumbling against the wind that blew across the deck, until they stood at DeKellia's side, looking down at the distant ground and the dwindling speck of the falling Hrin.

“It's what he wanted,” DeKellia said, then turned from the rail and went below decks, so lost in thought that he hardly glanced at the Pyriad.

Sorcha fought down tears, still staring over the ship's rail, oblivious to the height while the horror of Khyle's suicide gripped her. She only recovered when DeSilva hustled her back from the rail.

“Oh, Monte, it's horrible!”

“He was dying anyway. Better to end it than die in bed, apparently.”

“But we could have saved him, he wasn't that badly hurt, he...”

“How do you know? Perhaps he didn't want to live without Vari. Perhaps he'd just had enough of it all. In any case, it's done.” More gently than his brusque tone implied, he led her back towards their cabin. “Come on, we can leave the Pyriad to it for a bit, Charn or someone can keep an eye on our course. It's not good for you to be up here when you're upset.”

“Upset?! Monte, one of our friends just killed himself!”

“And?”

Sorcha found herself stuck on this point. Even when they had returned to the cabin, she could not articulate why DeSilva's attitude seemed so callously wrong.

“It's not right,” she protested, as she sat again on the bed. “It's just... he should have let us help him!”

“He did; he let us help him to die. None of us knew him very well; whatever he wanted, he asked my father for it. Then he jumped. That's the end of it.” DeSilva packed his pipe, pausing to curse beneath his breath when he recalled that the ring he habitually used to light it was up on deck. He made no effort to hide his irritation, swearing until he had located a book of matches in his pockets and struck fire to his pipe.

Sorcha watched him, gradually becoming aware that his outward reaction to Khyle's death was only a learned defence against sudden loss. On a rush of empathy, she tried to comfort him the only way she knew how, reaching to embrace him and offer him her lips. He kissed her, and as she lay down on the bed, a rush of relief transformed her from anxious distress to relaxed languor. DeSilva was nuzzling at her throat, kissing a path towards her breasts, his hands working at her clothes even as his implanted fangs nipped and tickled her skin. Sorcha yielded all volition, thinking to simply surrender to sensation, but she had underestimated both her distress at the latest traumatic events and the profundity of her relief; even as arousal raised a blush on her skin and she instinctively readied herself, a sleep of exhaustion descended and swept away her awareness.

She dreamed of the harem, of the callused hands of Naril warriors and the strength of their embrace, only to wake with a small cry, sitting half-upright before she knew she was awake. DeSilva lay beside her in the bed, asleep, naked. By her own nakedness, Sorcha guessed that he had made love to her anyway, perhaps hoping his touch might wake her and realising it would not only when it was too late for him to prematurely stop. She was not sure how to feel about this, trained in the harem to consider her own consent irrelevant, an attitude only affirmed by the moralistic Silvan culture that stressed personal submission and obedience. If anything, she felt vaguely disappointed that a moment of post-coital clarity had passed her by while she slept.

Gathering the bedclothes, she tucked herself and DeSilva in, then snuggled up against him, seeking a more usual and healthy sleep than the hysterical slumber that had so recently overcome her. But sleep, when she sought it, eluded her; all she could do was to lie in DeSilva's slumbering embrace, her mind possessed by insomnia. They were in an airship, now being flown by a fire-demon in woman's form; Sorcha had seen a great many wonders, but her new predicament she put hastily from her mind, afraid it would overturn her sanity. The fight at the Winter Palace had been horrific, violence so familiar that now she shuddered to recall it; Drake's volleygun cutting men down, DeKellia cheerful killing of any to draw steel against him, Charn, Kalidor and the rest so inured to battle that they thought nothing of it. Even DeSilva, younger and less callous, still had armour against the horror. Sorcha had none; between her harem training and the abuses of her upbringing, she could only witness any combat with terror, certain that she must submit to whoever emerged victorious.

She studied DeSilva now while he slept, her lover, a man she had once despised, but for whom she felt the same growing affection that she had known for the first of the Naril Darians to take her to his bed. That man was dead, and Sorcha suspected that by some twist of fate it was DeSilva himself who had slain him, that night of battle months ago on the shores of Lake Karmensis.

Seeking within herself for some firm emotion, she found only confusion; she loved DeSilva, but she had loved her lost Naril warrior too. Both loves felt different, and yet unaccountably the same. She thought then of Menalowen, her Goro archer, and knew she had loved him in yet a third fashion, the submission of her body the only way she could express to any of them her affections. But she had needed no man in Silveneir; she had been raised to live and die alone, a Silvan warrior. That identity was alien to her now, terror just as Charn was terrifying; to return to her homeland, she must admit to her family that she was not, never had been and could never be the Silvan sword-maiden they had wanted. Then they would punish her, force her to try and be what Silveneir required of its daughters. And she would try, just as she had tried to convince herself until now that the identity her parents demanded was who she should rightly be; it was this present Sorcha, who she was now, that was the aberration.

Softly, not wishing to wake DeSilva but unable to contain herself, Sorcha began to cry. In her mind, as she had seen most vividly when she stood before the mirror in harem clothes and Silvan mask, there were two Sorchas, the Silvan and the harem girl. But it was the latter who strove for life, while the warrior Silvan sought only death. Sorcha, herself, studying these two halves of her personality, wanted only to live; in her mind, the harem girl clung to her, pleading to live and offering all the pleasures of the flesh in exchange, while the warrior's grim eyes could ask no mercy and offered only the cold strength of steel.

Belatedly, she realised she had found the clarity that usually only sex could bring. The knowledge frightened her, and she instinctively began to kiss and caress DeSilva until her touch roused him halfway from slumber. He blinked at her, her lips and hands on his chest, and she looked back, staring into his unreadable grey eyes. Then she moved lower, his hand stroking through her hair as she bent her lips to his pleasure.

She stopped before he came, lifting herself up and straddling him to take him deeply into her flesh.

“Sorcha...”

“Shh.” She put a finger to his lips, beginning to rock her hips, gently at first but with rapidly increasing rhythm. “Don't speak. For Iaran's sake, don't say a word, I...” the first gasp ended whatever she had meant to say. Another followed, then a third quick upon it, rising in volume and urgency. She leant back on her hands, arching her spine and hanging her head back, bracing herself to bring the full strength of her body to bear while she ground her hips against him.

Deftly he rolled her beneath him, pinning her arms with his hands while he strove into her, his passion racing with hers until her screams reached a crescendo and he tensed suddenly, his entire body quivering in the moment before release. With a shuddering sigh, he collapsed beside her on the bed and lay still for a long time.

When he moved, he groped blindly for his pipe. Sorcha handed it to him, followed by the book of matches.

“Hell...” DeSilva shook his head and chuckled, then drew on his pipe and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “You're incredible, I've said it before, but...”

“Don't.” Sorcha lay curled up beside him, her back against his chest but her legs drawn up close and her arms around her knees. “I don't know why I did that.”

“Because you wanted to?”

“Yes, but I don't know why.”

“Why you wanted it?” he paused, studying her past the stem and bowl of his pipe. “It's normal to want sex.”

“Not for a Silvan.”

“I grew up in the palace, the Warmistress has sex all the time, she holds massive orgies almost every night.”

Sorcha uncurled enough to look up at him. “The Warmistress? That's heresy.”

“No, it's the truth. The Warmistress Eliana has eleven lovers in her room at a time; six Darian slaves to pleasure her, and five harem-girls to fluff the waiting men for when she wants them.”

Sorcha rolled fully over and gaped at him. “You what?”

DeSilva lowered his pipe and looked her full in the eyes. “It's the truth. I grew up in the palace. The Warmistress imports men from Daricia and girls from Kellia to warm her bed. Only the Sinistral Guard know about it, and they're all sex-mad and half-crazed with drugs; believe me, I've seen it, I've been there.”

Sorcha rolled over on her back and stared at the darkened ceiling, stunned to hear explicitly stated what she had only dimly suspected in her darkest imaginings.

“It's all a lie?”

“The religion? Yes; no one in the palace believes a word of it. The goddess Iaran was just a queen, she died in battle and Eliana took the throne.”

“But Iaran came back from the dead, she appeared to the whole city...”

“And died again soon after.; I've met the woman who killed her, so have you.”

Sorcha shuddered and curled up again into her foetal ball; she had heard the claims of the Darian Queen Rathe Saban, and automatically dismissed them.

Gently, DeSilva added, “Ask my father if you like; he was there when Iaran died.”

A wretched sob forced its way from Sorcha's chest; DeSilva responded by gathering her close in his embrace. “Shh, it's alright, it'll be alright...”

“No, it won't!” Sorcha lashed her head angrily against his chest, only to subside again into sobbing. “I can't tell anyone this, none of my family would believe it! I'd be burnt at the stake if I tried to tell them their religion was bullshit!”

“So why...”

“Don't tell me not to go home! Don't tell me I don't have to! I do!” Tears overcame her and she sobbed brokenly, “I do. What happened to me wasn't my fault, but I led twenty other girls to that fate and none of them returned; I owe it to them, I owe it to myself, I have to tell my family what happened, no matter what comes next!”

“What about Sabra?”

Sorcha screamed and lurched from the bed, stumbled into the wall, and leant against it, fighting for breath, her eyes wide and her heart hammering.

“Don't say her name, Monte, please, I'm begging you; don't talk about her, I can't bear it. You're right, she's the real reason and I know you loved her too, but please don't talk about it.”

DeSilva lay silent while Sorcha got dressed, rousing himself only when she went to the door.

“Here, wait for me. I have to check the burner anyway.”

“Don't you mean check the Pyriad?” Sorcha asked, bitterly.

DeSilva glared at her. “Oh, for goodness sake... she's a fire spirit! How could anyone possibly...” he gave up in exasperation, pulling on his clothes in furious haste, muttering to himself all the while.

Night had fallen while they rested, but up on deck the blaze of the Pyriad lit up the ship as bright as day.

Kam Daishen sat on watch, the flaming beauty of the Pyriad turning the knight's armour from dusky red to flashing gold. Above the roar of the wind and the flaming crackle of the Pyriad, Kam's voice came low and sonorous; the red knight was telling the Pyriad stories.

“...and out the bushes stumbled a naked girl, with a young man pursuing her.”

“Oh, the brute!” The Pyriad exclaimed. “What did you do?”

“What any knight should; I drew my sword, put the lady behind me and gave her pursuer the challenge. Only then did I discover that it was none other than young DeSilva, my nephew, though we had not then met before.”

“Monte?!” The Pyriad giggled. “What was he doing chasing a naked girl through the woods?”

“Trying to catch her?” Kam conjectured. “In any case, DeSilva informed me that there was a band of Silvan riders on his trail, and that this naked girl had been sent as a ruse to delay his escape.”

“Oh, how cunning!”

“Naturally, I resolved to meet with his pursuers and get their end of the tale. When we encountered them, all twenty set upon me first with bows and then at close quarters.”

“What did you do?”

“It is written that none shall come against a knight in arms and withdraw unscathed,” Kam answered.

“You killed them all?!”

“No, not a one, but rather trounced them with the flat of my sword...” Kam glanced up, seeing Sorcha and DeSilva at last. “And here are the witnesses, young DeSilva of course, and Sorcha, who was the leader of that Silvan band.”

“You bitch!” the Pyriad spat sparks at Sorcha. “How dare you chase my beloved Monte through the woods, and send naked girls to trick him, and put poor Kam to so much trouble giving you the spanking you so richly deserve?”

Sorcha had learned a secret enjoyment of being spanked in the harem but did not say so. Instead, she picked up the rest of the Pyriad's accusations.

“That's not how it was! That other girl was nothing to do with me, the Warmistress sent her! I'm sorry I was chasing Monte, but...”

“Hah, so you admit it!” The Pyriad crowed. “Shall I burn her, Monte?”

“No, no, no!” DeSilva held up his hands and stepped in front of Sorcha. “It's alright, we've sorted it out, no need for any burning! And anyway,” he added, as the Pyriad began to subside, “Kam just told you how Sorcha already got her spanking.”

Sorcha slapped DeSilva on the arm. “Monte!”

“Don't you slap him!” The Pyriad exclaimed, growing volcanic in her wrath. “You wanton little hussy, I know your game; you're after him, aren't you? Well, you can't have him, he's mine!”

By now, the sound of raised voices had brought their other companions up on deck; DeKellia emerged, dressed in boots and breeches but without his shirt, his pipe in one hand and his sword belt on his hips. Behind him came Hnasi and then Vashta, wrapped in a bedsheet and naked underneath. Behind them appeared Tendath Drake and Meridian Charn, both fully clothed. Noth Kalidor detached himself from the shadows in the bows as if he had been there the whole time.

“Alright, what's all the noise?” DeKellia growled, and before anyone else could speak, the Pyriad declared, “This ghastly little tart is trying to steal my Monte! She's chased him all over the world, and now she's found him she's just draped over him night and day like a... like a... slut!”

Sorcha went bright red. Charn laughed and leant against the ship's rail to enjoy the show. DeKellia shook his head in despair and turned to usher his women and old man Drake back below decks.

“Now look,” DeSilva said to the Pyriad, “it's all far more complicated than that...”

“Are you sleeping with her?!” The Pyriad demanded.

When DeSilva said nothing, the blazing beautiful face of the Pyriad gaped incandescent outrage. She seemed to inhale, the flames that composed her glowing brighter in her astonished fury.

“Oh Monte, you bastard!” The Pyriad screamed at last and vanished with a hissing wail of anguish back into the Dancing Ring.

DeSilva swore and all but collapsed on his knees before the burner; as the Pyriad vanished, the pilot light that had composed her failed too. Almost instantly, the airship lurched and began losing height.

With the vanishing of the Pyriad, her wyrd light was replaced by the half-light of pre-dawn, the forest below them and the mountains to the north emerging from the gloom in shades of purple that gradually became their natural greens and grey.

"We're going down!" DeSilva shouted above the wind. "The airship's sinking."

"Well make it go up again!" Charn snapped, peering over the side to watch the ground rising up to meet them.

"The Pyriad's sulking, a second ago we were an airship, all we can try and do is land before we drop like a stone!”

"Where?" Charn was still looking over the ship's side, the only one on board with the inclination to do so. Below them, the forested slopes of Silveneir's rugged highlands invited the airship to its doom.

"It's hills or valleys," Charn shouted back to DeSilva. "Lots of trees either way; choose fast."

DeSilva swung the wheel to port and the airship heeled. The deck canted alarmingly and the vessel almost capsized. He righted the airship in a hurry and narrowly missed flinging himself and the entire company over the starboard rail. They were heading east now, rapidly losing height. There was a rustle of branches as the airship skimmed the tallest trees, then a massive crack and scream of tortured wood; Sorcha swallowed a scream.

"We're dead," Charn said, quite coolly. "That sounded like the hull."

"It was a tree!" DeSilva snarled back, teeth gritted while he wrestled with the wheel.

The next impact jarred Sorcha's grip on the rail and she was sent stumbling into Charn. The Diva swore but still caught Sorcha bodily even as she lost her own balance. They reeled together against the rail, and for a moment Sorcha looked straight down at up-rushing ground. Then the ship listed again, threatening to capsize in flight, and Sorcha felt both herself and Charn beginning to fall. Possessed by terror, she lurched backwards from the drop, fighting desperately for balance, and grabbed hold of Charn. Panic suddenly became a moment of utter calm more terrifying than the imminent plunge to earth. Sorcha braced both hands on Charn's shoulders and restored her own balance by precipitating the Diva into space. Charn swore as she fell, her voice stolen by the wind.

The force of the shove threw Sorcha to the deck; there, she clawed her nails in the wood and crawled back from the ship's rail, fighting gravity and the wind for every inch of safety.

It was futile; even as she found a firm handhold to cling on, the airship smashed into the upper arms of the trees. The first impact was followed by a dozen more in quick succession as the airship ploughed through the forest canopy, clipping tree trunks and snapping branches as it fell. The balloon caught and tore in the tallest boughs. Twenty feet from final impact with the ground, the airship struck an oak head-on. The oak was a gnarled and ancient monolith, a veteran of countless storms that had withstood generations of woodsmen with barely a scratch; the old tree refused to yield now and the airship rebounded, felling half a dozen lesser trees as it broke apart.