by D. T. Kane
He reached out to the shrine, weaving the elements together like pieces of a puzzle until they snapped into place like a key in a lock. Devan pictured the Conclave and was immediately there. The others were all there too.
At least, what was left of them.
3
Jenzara
The rights of all those attuned to the fifth element shall be forfeit, as shall the rights of any found to be giving them aid.
-Excerpt from the Shadow Edicts
GO LOOK FOR FERRIN,” she muttered for perhaps the dozenth time. Class was supposed to have started twenty minutes prior. Ferrin hadn’t been there, of course. She’d warned him not to be late again, but sometimes talking to him was less productive than speaking to a statue. Now father was making everyone wait while she searched. What he failed to grasp was that Ferrin stood to lose little from this episode—most of the others already couldn’t stand him. Ferrin knew this, which was why he had no qualms about skipping class. One of the reasons, anyway.
But father was utterly missing that he was now making her a target for the others’ anger. And there was plenty of that to go around when it came to Ferrin. He was good at everything and he knew it, and made sure others knew it too. And since he was so ground-shaking skilled, it meant others rarely had a chance to put him in his place. She’d become a convenient scapegoat for this particular incident if she couldn’t find Ferrin soon.
Actually, it was more likely father knew exactly what he was doing to her. A leader must do what is necessary, even when her followers dislike it, he’d say, or some similar bit of insight. Even when she wasn’t in class, he was trying to teach her, preparing her to take his place as the town’s master. That thought only darkened her mood further.
“Go look for Ferrin.”
She had to wipe the glower from her face as a field hand strolled by, removing his straw hat and bobbing his head to her. She smiled and nodded back. Even if she didn’t like it, she knew her place as the town master’s daughter, the responsibility she helped father carry out. And no matter how much she disliked his lessons, she’d never want to embarrass father.
The library was the first place she checked. Ferrin was always there, reading one tome or another, though almost never what father had assigned. Of all things, his favorites were genealogies. He had himself convinced that if he read enough of them he’d figure out who his parents were. She doubted he’d ever find anything, though she hadn’t the heart to tell him. Sometimes she wondered what was worse—never having known your parents or having known them and living with the knowledge they’d been stolen from you. She couldn’t imagine anything was worse than the latter.
Jenzara shook such thoughts from her mind. She had enough to worry about without dredging up those memories again. By now, the sun was well over the town’s outer wall, slender timbers with sharpened tips, bound tightly together and stuck deep into the earth. It was a clear day, the sky its typical shade of blue streaked with red, as if someone had released colored smoke into the clouds and frozen it there. Father claimed it hadn’t always been like that; that it had once been a pure blue, just like the North Sea off Tragnè City’s southernmost point. But it had been that way for as long as she could remember. Ever since mother...
Stop that, she scolded herself. No time. The class would be close to an uproar now with impatience. All save for father. He’d be implacable as always, arms crossed, waiting as if time meant nothing to him.
Ferrin wasn’t in the library. No one was. Its rows of cherry wood tables and high-backed, uncomfortable chairs stood unused. Stained-glass windows sent myriad colors playing across the spines of books that sat on the dozen or so shelves in the reading room. Father was always lamenting that before the war there’d been many more shelves. But after the Betrayer had thrown the South into conflict with the North, the Temple had ordered many volumes removed from general circulation. Father still maintained them, of course, down in the dank basement of the building. Row upon seemingly endless row of tomes, scrolls, and folios. She shuddered, thinking of that dark, cold place, but it was one of Ferrin’s favorite hideaways. So she checked it, but he wasn’t there, either.
Returning to the main level, she frowned at her reflection in one of the reading tables. Her purple eyes stared back from beneath a head of straight, shoulder-length dark hair. Where in the Lady’s Light was he?
She checked the Great Hall next. It was one of the tallest structures in the Western province. A central, rectangular turret towered over the rest of Ral Mok, taller by several heights even than the wooden walls that surrounded the town. Massive oak doors that took the strength of several men to open stood at its base, leading into a cavernous space large enough to house nearly every inhabitant of the town for meetings and meals. Above the entryway shone a stained-glass window, displaying Agar sitting upon Rend’s back, the only lion ever to set paw upon the shores of Agarsfar. The creatures were native to Sykt, the land south of Agarsfar, and Tragnè had sworn that no man or woman of Agarsfar was ever to return there.
Ferrin wasn’t in the Hall. She even checked his room, which in retrospect had been a waste. He was never there, used it as little more than a storage closet with a bed. Books and writing parchments were strewn about with absolutely no organization at all. She nearly kicked over an ink well sitting on the floor. A practice sword balanced upon two pegs jutting from a wall was the room’s sole decoration.
That left only one other place he could be: The Chapel. The Angelic Chapel was its official name, though hardly anyone used it. The faith had never taken hold in the South. Some stories said that, back during the founding days of Agarsfar, Agar himself had employed one of the Angels as supervisor. But that was a rubbish tall tale. Everyone knew it. Lady Tragnè herself had cursed the Angelic faith at the end of the Great Shadow War. After that, none save the filthy shadow lovers in the North had continued to abide it. Why father insisted on maintaining the Chapel at all was beyond her.
But the general dislike of the Angelic faith also meant that no one went to the Chapel, meaning it provided a quiet respite from the cramped confines of Ral Mok, where it was otherwise impossible to be more than a few feet away from another man or woman during waking hours. In her experience, only one other person had ever come to a similar realization.
Nevertheless, for a moment she didn’t think he was there. As she stepped into the Chapel, it took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. It was a relatively small building, probably no larger than her father’s study, though father’s study was large as far as such rooms went.
The chamber was largely taken up by three sets of stark, wooden pews, three rows each. They were arranged at angles facing one another, forming a triangle. At the center stood a traditional elemental shrine: A three-tier stone fountain, water cascading down from a burbling font at its peak. Sconces holding unlit torches protruded from the center tier. A skylight admitted the chamber’s only other light, casting shadows about the rest of the room. Around the fountain’s base was a ring of soil, out of which lavender orchids grew.
She nearly let out a sigh of exasperation and turned to leave when she saw the cover of a book hovering above the back of one of the pews. Suppressing a twitch at the edge of her mouth, she stepped around the outer pews with care, her leather-soled boots making no sound on the chapel’s stone floor.
There he was. Ferrin. Stretched out on one of the front-most pews, holding the book out before him with both hands. A candle balanced on the edge of the pew, near his head, illuminated the pages. He was around her age—though no one knew exactly how old—slender, with short, brownish-red hair that always looked as if it’d been blown about by a strong gale. Usually the sight of those unkempt curls made her smile. But now she was hardly in the mood. He was so engrossed in whatever he was reading he still hadn’t noticed her.
“Ferrin,” she snapped, crossing her arms below her breasts.
He started, dropping the book onto his face. Fumbling with it, he nearly lost his b
alance on the bench, flapping his arms until he managed to right himself into the semblance of a sitting position. The necklace he always wore, a series of dull, golden rings connected by fine chain, flopped out of his shirt, which was untied at the neck.
“Flaming skies, Jenzara. You shouldn’t sneak up on a man when he’s reading.”
She just glared at him, but he didn’t seem to notice. After taking a deep breath, he motioned to the space beside him on the pew.
“Have a seat if you want.” Then he bent over the book, seeming to go back to his reading.
“Ferrin,” she snapped again, hoping she sounded as stern as she intended. She nearly put her hands on her hips, but managed to stop herself at the last moment. A leader never shows her exasperation, father always said. Advice that was nearly impossible to abide with Ferrin.
“Father’s got the whole class waiting for you. And while you might not care about the inconvenience you’re causing the others, now they’re going to blame me too because it’s taken so long to find you.”
“Hmmm,” was the only reply he gave. She could have slapped him. Then his head snapped up from the book. “Have you ever heard of peregrination?”
She frowned. “Pere-gri-what?” The word came off her tongue like she’d just eaten a spoonful of smashed nuts. “Come on Ferrin, there’s no time for one of your tangents.”
“P-E-R-E-G-R-I-N-A-T-I-O-N,” he spelled out as if she hadn’t spoken. He started to point to a page in the book he was reading, then seemed to realize she wouldn’t be able to see in the gloom. He waved a hand absently in the direction of the unlit torches on the shrine. The candle balanced next to him guttered, and the torches erupted into flame with such violence she let out an involuntary yelp and backed away, shielding her face with an arm. Even though she knew how powerful he was, she never got used to how casually Ferrin could channel such immense flows of elemental power. She didn’t think any other fire attuned in Ral Mok could light three torches using the power given off from a single candle. In fact, there were few enough who could channel enough power from a lit candle to light another candle.
Not that she’d actually sensed what he’d done, of course. She wasn’t fire attuned. Light and earth were her attunements, neither particularly strong. She didn’t have a tenth of the talent Ferrin had for channeling. Or anything else for that matter.
Ferrin pursed his lips for a moment. “Sorry. I didn’t mean for it to be quite that strong.” He frowned down at the candle for a moment, then looked back to her.
“Anyway. Peregrination. It’s this theory that if one masters all five of the elements, then it’s possible to manipulate the time and place of any object you wish.”
She gave him a skeptical look, her mission momentarily forgotten. Ferrin sometimes had that effect on her.
“What have you been reading?”
Ferrin held up the tome. The Lessons was emblazoned across the leather cover in faded silver script.
“Where did you even find a copy of that? Everyone knows the Angelic Church’s teachings are little more than fairy tales.”
He shrugged. “Your father’s study.”
She put her hands on her hips, unable to resist the impulse this time. Father did not lend out his personal collection.
“I’ve read all the interesting books in the library already, and there were few enough of those to begin with.” He spoke as if this utterly justified his actions.
She rolled her eyes.
“Forget where I got it from. Hear me out. The theory makes sense.”
She crossed her arms with great emphasis, taking an exaggerated breath that caused her chest to noticeably rise and fall, though Ferrin’s eyes never left the page he was scanning. There was no use trying to stop him once he got going.
“All things are made up of varying amounts of each of the five elements, right?” he asked.
She nodded but didn’t unfold her arms.
“Right. So if one is able to channel all five, then in theory he could manipulate the entire essence of an object, everything it’s made of. And if you can bend the entire essence of an object to your will, then who’s to say you couldn’t move it from one place to another simply by channeling. Or even,” his voice rose in excitement, “speed up or slow down the movements of all the elemental particles of an object, thereby altering the object’s position in time. The book calls that, um,” he flipped through several pages, tracing lines with his index finger, “relativity.”
“So, like, time travel?” Now she didn’t bother suppressing a laugh.
“Exactly,” Ferrin exclaimed, apparently not having noticed the skepticism in her voice. “Imagine. You could change anything you wanted. Something about your past you don’t like? Poof! Just channel the five elements and go back to change it. Great breakfast this morning? Easy as blades. Channel and go back to eat it again. Think of the possibilities!”
Jenzara frowned, her thoughts jumping briefly to her mother. But no, this was ridiculous.
“There are so many things wrong with that it’s laughable.” She pursed her lips. “First, it’s only once in a generation that someone masters three of the elements, much less all five. And even if someone could master all five, think of how much focus channeling all at once would require. You yourself have told me it’s an order of magnitude harder trying to focus when you channel earth and fire at the same time.”
Her words wiped the excitement from Ferrin’s face. It was almost sad to watch his glee fade. Almost.
“It’s not that hard,” he said, glowering.
She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Ferrin. We need to go. Father’s got everyone broken into three groups, just like the Senate. And you’re the head of one of them. The Senate can’t conduct business until the leaders of each house are present, so father won’t let class start either. Experiential learning he’s calling it.”
Ferrin snorted. “More like fantasy.”
“What do you mean?”
He fumed. “You know as well as I that ever since the Parents disbanded the Symposium the Senate is just a veneer for the Temple’s absolute control of Agarsfar.”
Jenzara swallowed a gasp, clutching Ferrin’s arm. She glanced around to ensure no one was within hearing distance. She stared into his slate-colored eyes, hoping to see a bad joke in them. She saw nothing but sincerity.
“Don’t say such things,” she said in a whisper, though no one was near. “The Parents have named people shadow friends for less.”
Ferrin narrowed his eyes at her, as if what she’d said somehow furthered his own argument, though she couldn’t see how. Everyone knew that questioning the Parents was only a step removed from announcing support for the shadow. That’s how it had always been, and as far as Jenzara was concerned it shouldn’t change. The shadow was nothing but evil and the Parents were right to be as strict as they were about it.
“Besides,” she went on, “There’s still three houses in the Senate. The Commons and Temple are same as they’ve always been. The only change is now we have the Regent Symposia instead of the Old Symposium.”
“Yes, the Regent Symposia. Remind me. How many of the Temple’s Parents have been named to its twenty seats?”
Jenzara let out a long breath. “There are some former Keepers as well.” She grimaced at the word. Keepers. How was it that Ferrin was always getting her to say things she didn’t wish to? The Betrayer, Taul Bladesorrow, had been the leader of the Keepers. The Grand Master Keeper. And he’d nearly doomed the whole of the South before the Grand Father had stopped him, though he’d been too late to help mother. Today, the Temple discouraged citizens from even uttering the name of the disgraced order.
Ferrin sighed, shaking his head. “This is pointless, let’s go.” He began to walk out of the Chapel. She was about to retort that he couldn’t just leave it at that. That he needed to stop being so contrary or he was going to get in actual trouble one of these days.
“Oh, could you grab my practice sword?” Ferrin said over
his shoulder. “It’s over on the floor where I was sitting.”
She glanced into the Chapel, saw the wooden blade propped against a pew. Suddenly biting at her lip, she took a half step toward it, then stopped.
“Get it yourself.”
Ferrin stopped mid stride, looking back. He opened his mouth, then shut it, staring into her eyes until she looked away. Then he jogged back over to retrieve it. As he was strapping the sword belt around his waist, he said, “It’s really alright, you know. She’d want you to train like the rest of us, whether or not you were a blademaster.”
“You don’t know—”
A bell in the clocktower chimed. Only then did it hit her how much time they’d been wasting, rather than getting back to class.
“We need to go.” She turned without another word, striding quickly enough Ferrin had to run to catch up. The song of dueling swords echoed from the training ground on the far side of the yard. She ignored it. A cow mooed. A blacksmith’s hammer clanged. They hurried past farmers tending crops planted within the walls, and she could hear the jolly songs of hands tending those beyond them. Mostly corn and beans, staples that, until the war, Ral Mok had often shipped North. The Darkerland’s rocky landscape made for poor planting and it had gotten most of its food via trade across the Western Trade Route, which had gone from Bristine in the South, to Port Lustin on the western coast, and finally up to North’s End. Sailing was dangerous on the rough waters that surrounded Agarsfar, ships rarely left sight of land. But until the war had begun, the lucrative trade between North and South made the risk worth it.
She glowered as they hurried on. Father was not going to be pleased. And the other students... She was going to look a fool. How long had it been since father had sent her to find Ferrin? She’d lost track of time during their conversation. She glanced to him. He looked decidedly unconcerned. She threw her hands in the air, drawing a quizzical look that only heightened her exasperation.