The Silence of Medair

Most were surging towards an unlucky building, their eyes scared and angry and determined. Medair almost fell as they pushed forward and then eased backwards, jostling bystanders. She caught herself and automatically steadied a young boy losing his own battle to stay upright. Shock broke through the numbness, and she clutched at him.

"Thank you, Kel," he said, gripping her arm. Never mind the Conflagration: they were in immediate danger of being crushed against the wall.

"What’s going on?" she asked, keeping hold of his sleeve as she tried to squeeze sideways. She couldn’t make out individual words in the roaring gabble which was assaulting her ears. Something about burning.

"Southerners, Kel," the boy replied, then gasped as the surge reversed abruptly, swallowing them both. The boy staggered and Medair received an elbow in the ribs. An arm supported her for a moment, then a shoulder spun her around and she staggered, almost lost her satchel at the same time as her hold on the boy’s arm.

"Let them burn first!" someone yelled, and the crowd roared. It brought Medair straight back to the alley in Burradge, but without the will to fight as the surge overwhelmed her.

Then her elbow was caught and she found herself being hauled unceremoniously out of the crush by a man of wholly disreputable appearance. Farakkian, round face liberally stubbled, clothes half rags and blond hair matted beneath a greasy kerchief. The Ibisian boy was tucked beneath his shoulder, and his expression was abstractly businesslike as he searched for a safe eddy in which to deposit them.

The crowd worked against him and he lost Medair’s elbow and stopped to try and reach her again. Medair was already being carried in the opposite direction. She resisted for a moment, then turned and pushed with the flow, was buffeted this way and that until, abruptly, she was free of the smothering press.

Her breath in her throat, she looked back and caught sight of the pair. The man gave her a brief nod of approval before hoisting the Ibisian boy so he could climb on to the nearest roof. Then he returned to the crowd, heading toward another hapless passer-by. With certain death on the horizon it seemed a futile gesture, but it made Medair wish she could do better than her own useless paralysis.

The bay of the crowd faltered as four riders on blinkered geldings had forced their way to the front of the mass, blocking the entrance of the small inn unfortunate enough to be hosting southerners. The leaders of the mob argued the case for a burning with a woman dressed in the uniform of the City Watch, making little headway. But the crowd was growing, pressing forward again. The confused babble grew and one of the horses tossed its head, plainly tried beyond its training. They would not be able to hold long.

The shouting died. The crowd began to break apart, and Medair found the cause at the Shield Wall gate. Mounted soldiers from the palace, thrusting their way through the northern edge of the crowd, which had been blocking the road almost completely. Eight rows, four abreast, and at the centre – Medair blinked at that clutch of shimmering robes, saw a pale head incline towards another. The Kier.

Even though most of this crowd were Farakkian, goaded by terror and fury, they still moved aside with the instinctive, absolute deference of Ibisians for their Kier. It was like marketplace marrat and the fashion for demi-robes. Not only had Ibisians become Palladian, but Palladians had become Ibisian.

As soon as a way was clear, Kier Inelkar rode on, eyes fixed on the fire in the southern sky. Medair was startled to see that Avahn was with her, as well as the Keridahl Alar. They disappeared in the direction of the South Cantry Gate, trailing a little buzz of magic which could only be spells used to control the horses in the face of fire.

Curious, lacking any other direction, Medair followed.

-oOo-

She was almost at Ahrenrhen Wall when it began. A counter-note to the ceaseless roar of the Conflagration, a complex thread of rhythm which seemed to come from several directions at once. Some kind of spell-casting, terribly strong.

Rahlstones. It had to be rahlstones, in the hands of the most powerful of the Ibisian mages. But what could they be hoping to cast? Cor-Ibis' message had spoken of a shield, but did they really imagine they could construct one sufficient to cover all Athere? For nothing would turn back that fire, no null-spell or magically-summoned storm would even give it a moment’s pause. It was the Conflagration.

Impossible not to try and find out what was happening, but Medair was hardly the only person with that idea. She was soon lost in a river of the curious streaming toward Ahrenrhen Wall, and when she finally saw the ramps and long stairways to the battlements, they were a solid mass of people.