Age of Death

by Michael

  Mawyndulë frowned in curious surprise. Vidar had actually made sense. Although comparing them to furniture was a bit insensitive.

  “As a member of the Aquila and leader of the Nilyndd, I am not impartial,” Imaly said. “There aren’t many here who can claim to be fair-minded. Fewer still, perhaps, who can be trusted with such an onerous task. That is why I nominate Mawyndulë, prince of Erivan and son of Fane Lothian, to draw the name. I believe he is the only person we can truly put our faith in.”

  This brought a snort from Vidar, which didn’t sound the least bit respectful, much less a sign of agreement.

  Just keep digging that grave, old Fhrey.

  Imaly extended her arm to Mawyndulë. “Will you help us?”

  He climbed the remaining steps slowly. Applause followed from every councilor. Vidar was the last to join, and his token appreciation was far from enthusiastic. The clapping didn’t end with the Aquila. Across the plaza, everyone in attendance was demonstrating approval.

  He reached the top step, and a large vase the size of a barrel was brought forth. “The names of the eligible citizens of Estramnadon have been placed in this urn. His Highness will now choose one.”

  Mawyndulë faced the great ceramic crock: around the base were geometric patterns and circling the neck, a single flying goose. He knew it well. The vase had been in the Talwara vestibule for years. As a child, he’d often hidden toys within it. Using the Art, his father had filled it with tiny stones engraved with the names of all those eligible. Looking inside, he found thousands of pebbles. At first, he marveled at his father’s ability to keep track of all the names. Then he wondered about how few there were.

  Is this all who remain in the city?

  There were likely thousands more in the towns and villages, those living deeper in the trees, those farther east.

  Or maybe this is all there is.

  The thought staggered him.

  What if these stones represent all the remaining Fhrey, excluding the few paltry Miralyith and members of the Aquila?

  It wasn’t impossible, but it was terrifying.

  How close are we to vanishing?

  With that singular thought, he plunged his hand into the pot and scooped around, swirling the markers as best he could. Even tiny stones were heavy en masse. Then, keeping his head up and looking toward the frescoes of Gylindora and Caratacus, he grasped a pebble and pulled his arm free.

  Refusing to look at it, Mawyndulë handed the pebble to Imaly. She took the stone in solemn reverence as if he’d just pulled the heart from an innocent child.

  Maybe I have.

  Imaly held it up between her fingers, showing it to the audience. “Does anyone find fault in this decision?”

  Heads shook, but no words were uttered.

  “The name I now read will be regarded as a great hero, one who will give their life to save us all.” Imaly brought the stone close to her face and focused on it. She nodded once with a frown. “Amidea, of the Gwydry.”

  A scream came from the crowd. Heads jerked. Everyone turned around to witness the commotion. Guards were already present—palace guards.

  Amidea was middle-aged, somewhere in her fifteen hundreds, a lithe worker with braided hair and terrified eyes. She screamed over and over again and kicked her legs in protest as the lion-helmeted soldiers drew her away with hooked arms. One of her braids came undone as she thrashed. By the time they had hauled her from the plaza, she had gone limp, her toes dragging on the marble.

  The gathered crowd was silent once more, but the mood was clearly lighter than before. Relief reigned. The hand of Death had plucked someone else.

  Imaly hated herself, but she couldn’t help feeling relieved. The lottery could have picked anyone, and she knew a lot of people. She didn’t know Amidea. She was Gwydry—a worker bee—who didn’t buzz in the same hive as the Curator of the Aquila. The Gwydry were on the bottom, but it wasn’t supposed to be that way. Gylindora had imagined a world where everyone was equal, but she might as well have imagined a reality where oil and water mixed and cream didn’t rise to the top.

  Maybe Amidea was a wonderful person, kind, loving, and always available to help her neighbors. But Imaly didn’t want to think of her that way. Instead, she conjured the notion that Amidea was a terrible person. Perhaps that was the reason Ferrol had singled her out. Perhaps Amidea secretly kicked dogs and tortured squirrels. That would make it okay, make it acceptable.

  I’m so full of crap, she thought while trudging home through the light snow, which was struggling to survive for more than a few seconds after hitting the ground. Imaly had made a life arguing in public, oftentimes creating sense where there was none. She used logic even when building arguments on sand, and her expertise made her points appear solid. Swaying opinion was a talent she had always excelled at. The problem was, she knew all her tricks—there was no way to fool herself.

  This is all because of me. I did it. I got Suri to teach Lothian about making dragons even though I knew innocents would die. I thought it was the right decision, but seeing them drag Amidea out kicking and screaming like that is more than . . .

  There was blood on her hands now. She’d have a lot more before this was finished.

  “Who will it be?” Makareta asked when Imaly entered her overcrowded home.

  Once upon a time, she could count on the restorative balm of solitude. Now she lived with a headstrong premillennial and a Rhune Miralyith.

  Life is absurd.

  “A Gwydry,” the Curator said as she hung her cloak on a peg near the door. She missed her mark, and the garment fell. Imaly stared at the hook as if it had joined the rest of the world in tormenting her. She left the cloak on the floor and walked toward the hearth where a dwindling fire burned. The house was cold. Makareta couldn’t be bothered to add more wood.

  For Ferrol’s sake, no! That would require doing something useful with her hands.

  “What’s their name?” Makareta asked. She sounded worried, as if it might have been her who had been picked, an odd tone, since she was already living under a death sentence.

  Imaly raised a brow. “You care about a Gwydry?”

  Suri appeared then, wearing Imaly’s blue asica, which had been tailored to fit. She crept out from the direction of the nook. The Rhune preferred the big windows that opened to the outdoors. Despite Imaly’s initial fears of two powerful rival Artists of different cultures trapped together, the two had gotten on like sisters; each acted as a calming influence on the other.

  “Who is it?” Makareta insisted.

  “Amidea.”

  Makareta thought a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t know her.”

  “I wouldn’t think you would.” Imaly rubbed her arms, trying to scrub off the chill.

  Suri overheard their conversation. Her brows, which were covered in queer markings, drew together in concern. “Does the fane know the person who is going to be sacrificed?”

  Imaly took a log from the bin and added it to the fire. “Wouldn’t think so. I mean, he may know of her. I did. I’ve certainly seen her face before, might have even heard her name. After a few centuries, you get to know almost everyone, but if you don’t see them often, it’s easy to forget. Still, I highly doubt the fane knows Amidea. I can’t imagine—I mean, how hard would it be to execute someone that you actually know?”

  “Suri?” Makareta said with enough concern to make Imaly turn.

  The Rhune bolted for the door. Finding the latch, she threw it wide and rushed out.

  “Suri!” Imaly shouted. “What are you doing?”

  Suri ran as fast as she could.

  Snow was falling, so it must have been cold, but she didn’t feel it. The world was bright in a colorless, hazy way, but she hardly noticed. She ran for the palace—the one place she knew how to get to. Suri assumed that was where she would find the fane. If she had stopped to think, Suri might have realized the fane wouldn’t wish to create a dragon inside a building. What she was confident abou
t was that the fane would perform the act immediately. Making the victim wait was cruel. Suri didn’t hold Lothian in high regard, but she didn’t think he would stoop that low.

  She never made it to the palace.

  A Fhrey dressed in blue and gold caught her before she reached the plaza. A number of armor-clad soldiers were out, and it was one of them who stopped her. Perhaps they would beat her, take out their frustrations on the only Rhune they could touch. This was why Imaly had warned her not to go out, but Suri had to try.

  With a rough solid grip, the soldier held Suri by the wrist, but he didn’t otherwise hurt her.

  “Let me go!” she shouted, and to her surprise, he did.

  “Can’t come this way.” The Fhrey shoved her back a step. “By order of the fane, the plaza is closed.”

  She watched as the guard grimaced and rubbed his hand on his thigh.

  It’s the new clothes. He’s only now realizing who I am, what he grabbed.

  From behind the guard and in the direction of the plaza, a horrible scream rose. The guard turned to look, and Suri darted past him. She jumped the evergreen hedge and the stone benches and made it all the way to the bricks before the Fhrey caught her again. But it was too late for the guard and for Amidea.

  The fane stood in the empty plaza. His cream-colored asica was stained with bloody handprints near the neckline and around the wrists. He wiped the blood from his face with the sleeves, doing a poor job. There was a surprisingly large, dark-red pool. A body lay in its center, a sword on her chest.

  “You lied!” the fane shouted when he saw her.

  The guard, who had previously grabbed her, caught up. He began to pull her away but stopped when he saw the gory scene.

  “No, I didn’t,” Suri said as calmly as she could, but in the presence of that dead body, she was struggling. “You didn’t listen!”

  “There’s no dragon! No gilarabrywn! Nothing happened. Nothing! I did everything you said and I almost felt it, but I couldn’t move the deep chords.”

  Suri jerked hard and tore her wrist free of the guard, who made no further attempt to stop her. Looking at the body, Suri took only a single step forward. The Fhrey lay prone, her arms and legs spread out. She didn’t wear an asica, just a simple pullover shirt and a vest with pretty needle-worked flowers. “Who was she?”

  “What?” Lothian asked.

  “The one you killed.” She pointed. “Her. Who was she?”

  He shook his head. “What difference does that make?”

  “It makes all the difference. I told you, but you didn’t listen. Did you even know her name?”

  The fane looked back at the dead body and shook his head. “Amidea, I think.”

  “You think? So, you didn’t love her?”

  The fane looked lost.

  “I told you, it needed to be a sacrifice!”

  “It was! I killed one of my people!”

  Suri shook her head. “How much of a hardship could it be if you barely knew her name?”

  “How dare you—”

  “I’m sure it was unpleasant, but the power that’s needed to make a gilarabrywn is greater than the total output of Avempartha. You don’t get that from discomfort or regret. I told you it had to be heartbreaking. You can’t get that from killing a stranger. You don’t get that from sacrificing an acquaintance. Doing it right . . .” Her voice cracked and her hand flew to her mouth as her throat tightened. Her lips quivered and her sight grew foggy as tears gathered on the sills of her eyes. “It has to kill both—all of them and a little of you. You are sacrificing part of yourself in the making. You won’t ever be whole again because you had to cut off part of what you were to make it. It’s the loss that matters. The sacrifice is just as much you as it is them. To make the weave work, to give it the required power, you have to kill someone that matters to you. Someone you love—someone you would otherwise die for. It has to hurt worse than anything you’ve ever experienced, and it has to be so painful that you’ll never want to feel that way again.”

  The fane continued to stare at her, but the hateful glare was gone. The distrust, the suspicion, the anger faded. His gaze shifted across the plaza then down to his bloodstained hands. Slowly he began to nod. “Yes . . . yes . . .” He continued to bob his head. “That would do it. The death, the pain, the anguish—of course.”

  There was no joy in his discovery, no victory to cheer.

  The snow increased, flakes falling on a windless afternoon. The world where the fane and Suri stood became a silent place.

  The fane focused on Suri. For the first time, he looked at her as if she was a person. “There aren’t that many people I care about that I can afford to lose.”

  Suri nodded. “Now you know why you only face one.”

  Chapter Twenty

  In the Presence of Legends

  Tesh had always been brave, determined, and invincible in battle. But he had never gone against a god before. Of the five, Ferrol—third-born daughter of Eton and Elan, Empress of the Dark, God of the Fhrey, Lord of the Damned, and Queen of the White Tower—was the last god anyone would want to face, and that included Tesh. — The Book of Brin

  “The victory will come at a price.”

  Outside, the trumpets blew again, and Tesh imagined that the Fhrey were fighting in the lower courtyard. “We can have this talk later, can’t we?”

  “No, we can’t. Tesh, when—if anything happens to me, you’ll be the last Dureyan. You should make sure that our people don’t die with you. You like Brin, don’t you?”

  “I really don’t think now is the time—look, I need to get down to the—”

  “Now is the perfect time because I don’t want you anywhere near the fighting.”

  “What? You can’t be serious! You stopped me last time—and I can help!”

  “You can help more by living through this night.”

  “What do you want me to do? Cower somewhere?” Tesh exploded. “You’re being stupid. I can—”

  “I want you to go to the Kype and protect Brin.”

  Tesh remembered his dream and lost some of his anger.

  “And when this battle is over,” Raithe said, “I want you to start a family, raise children, and live a good and happy life—someplace safe and green, like on a high bank overlooking the Urum River. I want you to do what I never could.”

  Why is he telling me all this now?

  Tesh noticed the others watching them, Suri and Malcolm especially. The tattooed girl had tears glistening on her cheeks. “Why are you—?”

  “You have talents, and you’ve learned to use them, but don’t let that be your whole life. Dureyans have always been known as warriors, but you need to change that. Promise me you’ll do something good, that you’ll make your life worth something more than killing.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Promise me.”

  “But I don’t understand why—”

  “Promise me.”

  When Tesh opened his eyes, he didn’t know where he was or where he’d been. A reality, clearer and more real than the one he found himself in, was slipping away. He’d been talking with Raithe. A memory. Yes, that’s all it was.

  But why that one? Of all my years and experiences, why that strange conversation? Maybe because I never saw Raithe again.

  He didn’t have time to ponder because he wasn’t alone.

  Tesh lay on a hard, white floor. He was cold, downright freezing—a strange but familiar feeling. He’d only experienced it once before—on the morning after he’d witnessed his family being butchered. Back then, Nyphron and his Galantians had moved to the houses and dragged out those who, like Tesh, were cowering in the shadows, hoping to go unnoticed. The only difference between him and the others was that his hiding place was better. He’d watched as the few survivors had been found and murdered. They screamed with animal-like panic until a sword or spear silenced them. After that, they weren’t animals, nor people, nor his friends. All that remained were piles of
flesh and bloody clothing.

  When the Galantians left, Tesh had been too frightened to move. He stayed hidden, mostly buried in the dirt beneath his home. He woke to sunlight, smoke, and a terrible cold that owned his whole body. No cold before or since had ever matched it—until he woke on the white floor in the throne room of the Queen of the White Tower.

  “That didn’t take too long,” Ferrol said. At least Tesh assumed it was her, and that she wasn’t talking to him. There were others in the room. Tesh didn’t look around, didn’t need to. He sensed a group watching him, five, six, ten maybe, not a multitude, but plenty. None of them was his friends. He sensed that, too.

  A harsh white light poured down so powerfully that he felt it. Looking up was impossible. The light was centered on him, stealing colors and leaving those around him in shadow. He could see her—some of her. The queen was sitting just a few inches away. A pair of unforgiving boots whose toes came to long spear points were eye-level with him. Her long leather-clad legs had a black polished sheen, or maybe that was still the boots. He couldn’t tell. She had them crossed, the top leg bobbing on the other, rocking with impatience.

  “Feeling better?” the queen asked. “Perhaps not.” Now, she was talking to him. He knew this although he still couldn’t see her face. Everything above the queen’s knees was hidden behind that painful illumination. “This is where you are supposed to be. You know that—must have felt it the moment you entered. That girl was confusing you. She doesn’t belong, and yet she is here, so there has been deceit and underhandedness. Let me be the first to extend some sympathy. I know it can’t be easy to discover that the one you love doesn’t feel the same way.”

  Tesh resolved not to speak. She was goading him, and he was weak and off-balance. He felt it best to keep his shield up and his head down.

  “She just left you there, ran away, saved herself. I’m sure that’s what you told her to do, but it didn’t take much convincing, did it? If she really loved you—the way you love her—she would have stayed. You wouldn’t have left her, would you? Even if she begged, you’d have stayed. But she ran off. Why is that, do you think? We both know the answer, don’t we? Because there can be only one reason.”