A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

Dumai woke with a gasp. Her skin was drenched, as if she had been hauled from the sea and thrown to her bedding, wet from the depths. It took her a moment to remember where she was.

Her heart rolled like a wave. She sat up and rested her brow on her knees, sweat dripping from her hair.

First light came through the window screens. Here she woke at the wrong time, to silence and stillness at dawn. Each morning she would pace the walkways, trying to tire herself to sleep before midday. She might drift off in the hour before sunset, only for the music and chatter of the Lacustrine court to keep her up all night.

For a long time, she had not heard from the figure in her dreams. She was too tired and unsettled to sink into that middle place. Yet suddenly a voice had come. Let it end, it had called. Help me. Send me rain.

Somehow, Dumai had known that she could. She had woken to a thunderclap, smelled rain, yet heard none on the roof. You have sent me so many signs. Help me understand, she willed the great Kwiriki. Tell me who this woman is, and what she wants.

She found Kanifa on a swing in the courtyard, drinking from a steaming cup. ‘You should try this,’ he said, slowing the swing for her.

Dumai sat beside him and took it. The drink was red and a little bitter, but warming. ‘Is Nikeya asleep?’ she said, drawing her pelt close.

‘As far as I can tell.’

‘Once again, the Lady of Faces adjusts to everywhere but the sky.’ She passed back his cup. ‘Have you heard from the alchemist?’

‘No. The Night Council must be considering what happened to this Northern king.’

‘Surely that doesn’t concern Master Kiprun.’

‘It may. What if the King of Hróth was slain by the same creature we saw?’ Kanifa asked. ‘What if there are more of these creatures as far away as that?’

‘If more come, we must all be doomed.’ Dumai looked at her friend. ‘How long should we wait for him, do you think?’

‘As long as it takes. We can afford some patience, Mai,’ he said, seeing her face. ‘You woke the gods to protect Seiiki. The Night Council will be debating whether to do the same here.’

Why Nayimathun of the Deep Snows was awake, no one had explained. She was an ancient Lacustrine dragon of the north, enshrined in legend as a wanderer with a strange and playful nature.

The homeless and lost prayed to Nayimathun. She was beloved of tricksters and thieves, orphans and travellers. Even the Hüran, who had brought their own gods from over the mountains, respected the Green Sister, since their people, too, had once been rootless.

They were picking at a meal when a servant loped into the courtyard, a little out of breath. ‘Princess Dumai,’ she said, ‘I bring word from Master Kiprun. He is ready to receive you – now, if you wish.’

Dumai stood. ‘Thank you.’

Black Lake Palace was a box of many secrets. Even though she and Kanifa had explored its many courtyards and gardens, its layout remained as bewildering by day as by night. Open paths interleaved its main buildings, with walls high enough that only the sky could be seen overhead. It was hard to map a path without a vantage point or guide.

The servant approached one of the colossal archways that divided these inbetween paths, and they climbed the stepway hewn into it. This brought them to the gate tower, which formed the base of the starwatch, a masterwork of black marble. High above, the celestial globe caught the light of sunrise as it turned, powered by a waterwheel.

Inside, they climbed hundreds more steps, sweet and fusty smells filling their noses. At last, the servant stopped outside a doorway. ‘This is the chamber of life,’ she said. ‘Please, enter.’

Candles fanned the dark to its corners. A stone bench took up one side of the room, lit by open stoves. Their light danced across a cabinet of glazed earthenware pots, each labelled in Lacustrine.

A small figure in crimson stood before the bench, sleeves rolled to the elbow, muttering. Dumai cleared her throat.

‘Master Kiprun?’

The alchemist whipped around. He wore round amber panes over his eyes, clipped to his nose, huge and misty with steam. ‘I did ask for duck feathers,’ he said, in a tone of sincere annoyance.

Dumai could only blink. His cheeks were flushed, threads of hair were stuck to his forehead, and he brandished a grey feather.

‘You brought me goose feathers. Goose,’ he barked, making her jump. ‘You do know the difference between a duck and a goose, don’t you? One quacks and the other honks, not to mention the neck. The neck alone—’

‘Master Kiprun,’ Kanifa interjected, ‘this is Noziken pa Dumai, Crown Princess of Seiiki.’

The alchemist sleeved the fog from his eyeglasses.

‘Ah. Yes.’ He interlocked his fingers. Each bore a ring of a different metal: gold, silver, iron, copper. ‘Princess Dumai. I am Master Kiprun, who shines – well, flickers, really – for the Munificent Empress. And you?’ he said to Kanifa. ‘Who are you, the Prince of Seiiki?’

‘No.’ Kanifa cleared his throat. ‘I’m just a guard, a friend to Princess Dumai. Not a noble.’

‘Is it not noble to be a guard?’ Master Kiprun wafted a brown hand, webbed with scars from deep burns, like his arms. ‘No matter. I never understand these things. Yes, your message caught my interest, Princess Dumai of the Faraway Isle. You don’t look much like a princess,’ he said, cocking his head. ‘Aren’t you supposed to wear a crown, or something?’

Dumai reunited with her tongue. ‘Well,’ she said, indicating her headpiece, ‘this is—’

‘Madam, that is a fish.’

After a moment, Dumai decided not to kick against the current. ‘It is a fish,’ she agreed, taking a step towards him. ‘My fish and I flew here to seek your help, Master Kiprun.’

‘Yes, I did fear as much. Last time, it was a king who disturbed my work. He found me in the mountains, just to annoy me.’ The alchemist snorted. ‘Once, it was the poor who sought my services, asking me to turn grass to gold. They were, at least, polite, if wildly optimistic. Now I am summoned hither and thither, disturbed by everyone from Golümtan to Ginura.’

He inspected the vessel, sniffed its contents, and promptly threw the contents over his shoulder, into a cauldron of slurry. Dumai exchanged a nonplussed glance with Kanifa.

‘The silence was an invitation for you to explain yourself, Princess,’ Master Kiprun said, distracted. ‘Time is long, but also short.’

‘Of course.’ Dumai followed him. ‘King Padar must have told you what we saw in the Broken Valley.’

‘You’re not going to ask the same questions he did, are you?’ Master Kiprun groused. ‘I can’t abide repeating myself.’

‘May I show you something instead?’

Master Kiprun pursed his lips and removed his sooty eyeglasses, showing a freckled nose and lines around his eyes, which aged him by a decade. He wiped his hands on a cloth before taking what Dumai offered.

‘These are quite old,’ he observed, unrolling the pages Unora had found. ‘Ah, yes, the Nameless One. I heard the story from a chambermaid, a descendant of Ersyri traders. She said it was a tale to frighten children.’

‘Clearly it is not,’ Dumai said impatiently. ‘We saw a wyrm just like this one. King Padar must have described it to you. I want to know where they come from, and why this is happening.’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘I assure you—’

‘You don’t want to know why they’ve come, Princess Dumai. I imagine such complexities would bore or baffle you,’ Master Kiprun cut in. ‘You want to know how to defeat them.’

‘Yes.’

‘According to the tale, the first creature emerged from a fire mountain. No fire mountain can be sealed. Even if it could, it would be as much use now as closing a cage weeks after the bird has flown.’ He handed back the pages. ‘As I told the King of Sepul, there is little to be done, except to hope that dragonkind can defend us.’

‘There must be another way. A human vanquished the Nameless One.’

‘Yes, with a magic sword, apparently. Do you have one?’

‘No, but—’

‘I deal in truth, Princess, not magic.’

‘What if magic is just a word for power beyond our understanding, like the gods possess?’ Dumai pressed. ‘I have no sword, but I have clues, Master Kiprun. I put my trust in you to decipher them. You have studied the layers and contents of the earth. Help me understand what I saw, and what Furtia Stormcaller has told me.’

Master Kiprun scratched his shaven head. ‘The black dragon?’

‘She converses with me.’

‘How?’

‘In my mind. She says there is a balance in the world, a balance that has been unsettled; that the fire beneath has grown too hot, too fast – and the star has not returned to cool it.’

Until this point, the alchemist had only appeared to tolerate her presence. Now he stared at her.

‘The star,’ he said, grasping her sleeve. ‘Wait. The dragon said a star has not returned?’

Dumai nodded. ‘She says that only fallen night can stop what is to come.’ He clamped a hand over his mouth and let it slide to his smooth chin, gaze fixed on nothing. ‘What is it, Master Kiprun?’

‘The night skies.’ A sharp laugh. ‘I should have thought of it. Stay exactly there, both of you.’

He bounded from the room and up another flight of steps, leaving Dumai to clutch her pages. Nikeya chose that moment to step into the chamber of life, examining the instruments with interest.

‘Princess,’ she said, when Dumai dealt her a withering look. ‘I see you met the alchemist.’

‘I see you followed.’ Dumai tucked the pages away. ‘How long have you been there?’

‘Not long. I would hate to miss the rest of such a fascinating conversation.’

‘And I would hate for the River Lord to miss even a moment of my private meetings.’

Before Nikeya could reply, Master Kiprun barged past her with an armful of scrolls. A moment later, he turned and raised a finger, narrowing his eyes. ‘You were not here before.’

‘I was not.’ Nikeya smiled. ‘Please, do go about your work, learnèd alchemist. Ignore me.’

‘Gladly,’ he said, and deposited the scrolls on a bench. ‘Princess Dumai, you have the rare privilege of having prodded my mind. What you say made me remember something.’

‘What is it, Master Kiprun?’

‘This is a world of many contrasts. Night and day. Fire and water. Sky and earth – that is, what is above, and what beneath. Beneath is rock and molten fire. We alchemists have always known the power that burns underfoot. Metals and precious stones are formed there, in the furnace of the world.’ He flashed his rings to demonstrate. ‘We try to imitate the process in alchemy. We cook the metals on smaller fires, hoping to alter them – turn iron into gold, and so on – or to understand their nature, such as why stone lasts longer than flesh.’

‘What has this to do with what Furtia said?’

‘Alchemists study the earth. Astronomers look to the sky. Since each of them takes a lifetime to master, only a rare few have tried to wed the arts of gold and silver.’ He unrolled a large sheet of parchment. ‘I read this theory a long time ago. The theory of the weighing scales.’

He moved aside to let them all see the drawing – a set, indeed, of weighing scales, like those for measuring herbs – and indicated its two bowls, both engraved with a word.

‘Two sides,’ he explained, ‘in perfect balance. Above rules the bowl of cold, water and night. Below rules fire and warmth and day. At any given time, we are in one of these two ages. For example, in a time ruled by the celestial forces, the days might be colder, and water might flow in abundance. The basic principle is that all the world is tuned to this duality. As one of the two waxes, the other wanes – an eternal balance. I have also seen it illustrated as a wheel or a sandglass, by those with interest in the notion.’

‘It’s said the first dragons came from the stars,’ Dumai said, catching on. ‘From above.’

‘Indeed, and now is not their time. That’s why they have been asleep. It stands to reason that something must originate from beneath, too – equal but opposite in nature. Something from the fire mountains, perhaps.’

‘But fire mountains often erupt – or used to, before the gods settled our lands,’ Kanifa pointed out. ‘Usually they bring no dangerous creatures with them.’

‘No,’ Master Kiprun agreed, his nose inching closer to the chart. ‘I have wondered if eruptions keep the fire in check, like steam when a pot boils. But if something has thrown off the balance, and there is too much fire . . . perhaps the overspill collects in this Dreadmount.’

Dumai said, ‘Do you know where it is?’

‘Over the Abyss, the sea even our best ships can’t quite conquer yet. But things far away can still affect us. A leaf could fall in Brakwa and cause a groundshake in Jarhat.’

‘Could it?’

‘Probably. I find most things I say do turn out to be true.’

Nikeya came towards them, her expression thoughtful. She stood beside Dumai to consider the chart.

‘What could have caused this great unbalancing of the forces, do you think, Master Kiprun?’ Her hair slipped off her shoulder as she looked. ‘It must have been a notable event, to set the world awry.’

Her usual arch tone was gone.

‘No idea. It stands to reason that we are in an Age of Fire,’ Master Kiprun said, ‘but one where the fire burns too strong. The ground has been dry, racked with drought, the rivers low. Even the ice in the North has been melting. Whether that extremity is the cause or the result—’

He tapered off into mutterings, too low and swift to decipher. ‘If these wyrms are indeed born of an imbalance,’ Dumai said slowly, ‘does it mean they possess no motive, no reason?’

‘I suspect not. They might have a small degree of intelligence, but not enough to overcome their nature.’

‘Which is . . . evil?’

‘No, no. A wildfire destroys blindly, but would you call it evil?’

‘But dragons are good,’ Kanifa said, a statement and a question at once.

‘Again, no. Consort Jekhen would execute me on the spot for saying so, but it is simplistic, to describe a dragon as good. They are in harmony with nature. Is that the same as goodness?’

Dumai watched the alchemist, waiting for his verdict. Master Kiprun stared down at the chart.

‘An Age of Fire would be ended by something from above.’ He slapped his hands flat on the table. ‘An astronomer. I never thought I’d say this, but we need one.’

‘Wait.’ Nikeya was looking towards the window. ‘Do you hear that?’

They fell silent. On the wall below, guards were shouting to each other, the wind snatching away their words. Dumai walked to the window to see columns of smoke, black and growing.

Without even drawing breath, she was gone from the chamber, down the stairs and through the doors, out on to the wall. In the city, screams were rising, even as the smoke billowed higher. ‘That smell.’ Kanifa was already at her side. ‘Just the same as in Sepul.’

‘Stay inside with Nikeya,’ Dumai told him. ‘These walls are stone. You should be safe.’

‘Dumai, where are you going?’ Nikeya called after her, but Dumai was already running.

****

The Hidden Lake was in the middle of the palace. Dumai rushed through the woken court, following the Inner Shim, until she reached a marble terrace overlooking a stretch of deep blue water. Furtia and Nayimathun were both in the lake, looking towards the city.

Nayimathun was larger, older. She could have swallowed Furtia whole and still had room to spare. At a less urgent moment, Dumai would have stopped to admire her scales, like frosted grass, and her mane, a sharp contrast, bronze spun into silk. Her horns were long and white.

Dumai pulled off her shoes and plunged into the shallows, wading towards them both. ‘Furtia,’ she shouted.

The dragon jerked her head towards her. Earth child. She flared her nostrils. They have come.

I know, great one. We must see what we face.

Only fallen night can stop it.

‘But we might slow it.’ Dumai signed as she spoke. ‘Please. We must try to drive it away.’

Rattling in agreement, Furtia lowered her head, and Dumai climbed her neck like a ladder. No time for the saddle, or to fetch her riding boots, but her feet were surer now, used to the instability of dragonback – she could sense where to place them. Once she was secure, she gasped to find Nayimathun of the Deep Snows considering her from above.

Who are you, island child?

A new voice in her mind. Nayimathun moved her enormous head closer, and Dumai stretched out a hand to touch her snout.

‘My name is Dumai,’ she said clearly in Lacustrine. ‘Noziken pa Dumai.’

I see the waters of your mind. Nayimathun smelled of green rivers and moss. How is it that you carry the light?

Before Dumai could answer, Furtia had lit her crest and swum into the sky, over the palace walls.

Furtia made for where the smoke was thickest. Dumai coughed until her throat scorched. It tasted rotten, scarring. Trusting the strength of her knees, she tore a strip off her tunic and plunged it into the manehair around her, letting it sop up thick brine. When it was drenched, she tied it over her nose and mouth.

The City of the Thousand Flowers was being set on fire.

Boats were striking out from the harbours. Below, a street of shops and houses had burst into flame, the fire a livid red, like feathering tongues of a sunset. Tens of thousands of people were running towards the River Shim, some with young children or goods in their arms.

Furtia growled. Droplets formed like gems on her armour, soaking Dumai to the bone. Her teeth chattered. She felt cold muscle shifting, smelled the sweetness of a storm, as the dragon swelled, soaking up the nearest wisps of cloud. Coasting low over the rooftops, she shook herself, drenching the streets, fires winking out in her wake.

Dumai looked up just in time to see a winged creature hurtling towards them. In the split second she had to absorb what she was seeing, she made three observations, as if from a great distance:

It is like what I saw in the valley, though smaller.

It has only two legs, not four.

It could be no less deadly if it can breathe fire.

When it came, the collision almost unseated her. Her shout was lost to an explosion of noise – Furtia roaring, claws scraping, the scream of the wind. The scent of storms was seared away, replaced by something hot and suffocating. Her head doubled in weight. Her stomach pulled against its root as Furtia rocked to the left. Through dark banners of her own hair, Dumai glimpsed teeth like iron blades, snapping shut with a sharp clang, before the beast was gone.

Great one, are you hurt?

Furtia shook herself off. That is a lesser thing . . .

Dumai was starting to regret her decision to ride with no saddle. Her hands ached from grasping manehair; her thighs cramped with the effort of staying put on a slippery hide. She glimpsed the winged creature twist through the air – singed brown scales, copper spines along its back – and throw its leathery wings open to swoop downward again.

Nayimathun rammed her brow into it. As it spun away, one wing clipped a temple, breaking three columns and trimming an eave. As soon as it swung around for another attack, the Lacustrine dragon bit down, crunching its wings, and flung its body into the river.

There.

Dumai looked back into the wind, and stopped breathing.

At first, she was sure it was the wyrm from the Broken Valley. Two horns and four legs, separate from its wings. Then she saw the way the light hit its scales – not with a glisten, like the sun on honey, but a clean, polished glow. From snout to tail, the creature was plated in gold bright enough to reflect the fires, gold stolen from the core of the world. It would have been magnificent if not for the complete absence of mercy in its eyes.

Its bulk was appalling. So was the din from below, as people started to see it. Dumai had never laid eyes on a living thing so large – its wings could have touched both banks of the river. Not even Nayimathun could match it, and Furtia, far younger, was spindly in contrast. Like all Seiikinese dragons, she was long and sleek, made for dives into the sea.

She flew towards the creature without a trace of fear. Dumai was frozen stiff. She could smell the beast, its wrongness, and the closer it came, the harder her heart pounded.

Its eyes were fixed on her.

‘Great one, stop!’ Her heels slipped as more briny water bubbled up beneath her. ‘Furtia—’

Stop, it’s too strong!

Furtia opened her jaws in a roar. Then a wave of hot air struck her, and so did a terrible iron horn, scraping along her side.

The white light in her crest hissed out.

The sound that followed was like nothing Dumai had ever heard – the screech of the wind, threatening to rip her eardrums. Furtia seemed to collapse on herself, and then she was in freefall, silver blood spraying from her side like rain.

The world reeled. Eyes streaming, teeth set, Dumai clung on. Furtia shuddered beneath her. Her crest flared back to life, and she whirled away from the approaching rooftops – but the upward pull was too hard and sudden, and Dumai lost her grip.

In years of climbing on the middle peak, she had never fallen any farther than it took to gasp. Not with Kanifa to catch her. This time, she had no rope around her waist.

She knew how to land: on her feet, knees loose, so she would break her legs and not her skull. There was no time for that.

Something clipped her shoulder. A blinding flare of pain, and then she landed, in a downy snowdrift at the base of the clock tower. It took the brunt of her fall, but pain burst in her shoulder and hip.

At first she was afraid to move, to see how badly hurt she was. People ran in all directions around her – some of them spilling out of the clock tower, others into it. She glimpsed merchants and soldiers, parents and children. Somewhere in the madness and black smoke, she heard dogs barking, screams and hooves.

Stay calm. Her mother spoke from her distant memory. If you fall, always stay calm.

Dumai curled her toes first. She could feel both legs. With care, she sat up, groaning at the throb in her shoulder. Her coat had been torn open where the corner of a roof had struck her. Blood was already drenching her sleeve.

A shadow overhead. The golden wyrm. It let out a reverberating call – a call meant to inspire fear – before red fire blazed from its maw, a wall of flame as wide as White Blossom Way.

Dumai warded her eyes from the heat. Coughing, she edged through the snowmelt, beneath a shroud of darkness. Furtia would never find her now, in the crush of people and horses rushing through these alleys. Her best chance was to get back to the palace.

She stayed low, afraid to breathe the rancid fumes. Her ribs flared with every movement. Splinting her side with one hand, she kept crawling, through wet footprints, soot and blood, until her fingers brushed a charred husk. Do not look, she told herself, quelling a retch. Do not look. She rose and stumbled out of the alley, into a street the wyrm had destroyed, where a building leaned and fell before her eyes, thickening the grey around her.

The hairs pricked on her nape. She looked to her right to see what she thought, at first, was a horse. Lightheaded, she wondered if it was in barding, and that was why it looked so strange – until a gust of wind thinned the embers and smoke.

It must once have been a stag. Now it was covered in scales. They armoured its head, its neck and flanks, everywhere but its hind legs, which were stretched, with a second knee, so it stood taller than it should. Blood leaked from open wounds where wings had broken through its flanks. Its teeth had sharpened and turned to metal, as had most of its antlers, bone needling from iron. A man lay dead behind it, his skull trodden beneath its hooves.

Dumai trembled. When its eyes found her, the sound it made was half whinny, half scream.

She forgot she was barefoot and wounded. The agony in her side disappeared, swallowed by the need to survive. Heaving for breath, she made for a low fence, scrambled under it, and rounded a sharp corner. She slipped on ice, twisting her ankle, slammed into a wall and kept going, not letting the hurt reach her.

In her years on the mountain, she had learned the dangers of the cold. In her time at court, she had learned the dangers of whispers and manipulation. Those paled in comparison to being a human among things reared by the deep unknown beneath the earth.

Another monstrosity lumbered across her path, almost twice her height, furred as well as scaled. The engorged bear stalked after a crowd, its eyes afire in its skull, huffing sparks through its nostrils. Dumai changed direction, only to see a terrible wolf. Its lower jaw was out of joint. When it barked at her, she hurtled down another street, soot burning in her throat.

This time, she had tripped over the wrong threshold – not into a dream world, but a nightmare.

Something pitched her to the ground. She rolled, protecting her head with both arms, until she crashed into the icy shallows of a canal. Soaked, she pulled herself on to the bridge above it, fear making her strong.

The canal returned her sense of direction. Following its course, she slid under a cart of ruined cloth, collided with another woman, and tripped on to White Blossom Way, where carts and shops were on fire as far as the eye could see. Dumai buckled, exhaustion overwhelming her body.

Island child.

Her head snapped up. Nayimathun was coming towards her. She mustered her strength and ran towards the dragon, the pain like a heated blade in her shoulder.

Nayimathun sailed low enough for her underside to skim the street. Other people were clinging to her scales, making grabs for the fronds of her tail. She caught Dumai and rose from the smoke, holding her with care between sharp claws.

Dumai fell limp as Nayimathun took her over the besieged city, finally laying her on the snow. Coughing uncontrollably, Dumai watched the green dragon shatter the ice on the Lake of Long Days.

When Nayimathun surfaced, she was not alone.