Cover

Also by Sarah Ash

ALSO BY SARAH ASH

Moths to a Flame*

Songspinners*

The Lost Child*

ALCHYMIST'S LEGACY
Tracing the Shadow
Flight into Darkness

THE TEARS OF ARTAMON
Lord of Snow and Shadows
Prisoner of the Iron Tower
Children of the Serpent Gate

*available as Jabberwocky e-books

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

The right of Sarah Ash to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 1996 by Orion Books Ltd. Published as an e-book by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc., in association with the Zeno Agency LTD.

ISBN: 978-1-62567-004-5

DEDICATION

For Eve and Louis, my parents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My grateful thanks to:

Caroline Oakley, my editor, for her patience, insight and expertise

Alison Sinclair for long-distance writerly encouragement and commiserations

Steve Jeffery and Vikki Lee-France – for cheering me up

David Pringle: the Lifhendil first appeared in my short story ‘Airs from Another Planet’ in Interzone

And Michael, Tom and Chris

Many thanks are due to Marcelle Natisin for her expressive cover art, to agents John Richard Parker and John Berlyne of Zeno Literary Agency Inc. and to Joshua Bilmes, Jessie Cammack, and Lisa Rodgers of JABberwocky for giving Songspinners a new lease of life as an e-book!

NOTE ON OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS IN BEL’ESSTAR

The female roles in opera were always taken by castrati as women were forbidden to appear upon the stage (as in Rome in the seventeenth century). One or two castrati devoted their careers to the portrayal of female roles, thus acquiring the title of ‘Diva’.

PROLOGUE

AT IRIDIAL’S SHRINE

Shadows flicker on the painted walls of the shrine. Shadow-petals from the slow-burning lotos candle, perfuming the vaults with its somnolent fumes, essence of summer water-meadows, sun-warmed shallows.

The girl sets the lotos candle down on a ledge.

Petals of rose-white light warm the dank darkness.

Meadows of painted primavera flowers embroider the walls, a constellation of star-daisies, marigolds, nodding windflowers, white and gold and azure blue.

The girl balances the cithara against her shoulder, picks up the quill plectrum… then lets fly a quiver of darting notes, sweet enough to charm the slumbering spirits of the dead from their sleep.

The lotos flame flickers.

The notes falter.

‘Mother…?’

Her soft voice barely stirs the enfolding silence, the dusty, timeless silence of the vault.

The flame burns brighter.

The girl lifts one hand to shield her eyes.

Fire licks at the painted walls, flames burst into flower, smoke curls into the air.

The girl begins to cough on the acrid fumes.

Flames all around her, crackling, roaring. Beams come crashing to the floor. Sparks sting her skin.

‘Mother! Help me!’

She stretches out her hands blindly into the blaze, trying to fumble her way through the searing heat.

The cithara drops to the floor.

‘Ai – my hands, my hands!’