"We agreed not to open the tenth wardbook," she reminded him, "no matter what."
"I don't trust her to hold to that promise," Seth said, "and even if I did, I don't trust her to manage the power she got from the first book—let alone the sixth."
Maybe we can talk to her, Lyseira nearly said, but she know it was pointless. They'd tried that again and again over the years; it always turned into a cycle of recriminations. She was too sensitive to Seth's accusations, too defensive to hear them honestly. "When we get back, I'll talk to Harth. He spends the most time with her these days; maybe he can get her to slow down and think."
Seth shook his head. "I trust him even less. What do we really know about him? That he's some kind of glorified street thug?" He jerked a thumb back toward the supply wagon, where Takra sat with the others. "And her. They're so excited about all her potential, but who is she? Is it a good idea for her to learn so much so fast? Do any of them ever stop to wonder about these questions? Syntal's the most careless, but—she's teaching them! You think she teaches them caution? Prudence?" He scoffed. "Does she even know the words?"
It was rare to see her brother this emotional. It made her sit up, take notice. "Then maybe we don't talk to Harth," she said. "Maybe we talk to the King."
He regarded her, his eyes inviting her to go on.
"Maybe some of these spells should be outlawed, or only permitted in wartime. Maybe there should be some kind of . . . restriction on who can be taught, and how much. We've never thought about anything like this before, but with so many potential chanters out there, it seems like it makes sense now. It's not just Syntal anymore. It's not just our little group. And you're right—we have no idea who most of these people are. I mean, I trust Takra. But the rest could be . . . Tal'aden spies for all we know." She'd thrown that out as an extreme example, but something in the words pricked the skin on her arms. She had started talking to try and appease Seth, but by the time she finished, she had warmed to the proposal herself. "I'll ask for an audience with the King when we get back to Keswick."
Seth nodded, but didn't meet her eyes. He kept staring into the campfire, jaw tight.
13
i. Caleph
He woke first. He often did.
In dawn's pale shadows he usually had a moment or two of unfettered control over his own body. Sometimes as much as a few minutes. Today he meant to hold out as long as he could before Baltazar woke and took control.
Being a prisoner in his own mind had afforded him a lot of time. He'd spent it in horror, denial, and despair—but finally, eventually, he had spent it to plan.
It seemed impossible that the presence which possessed him could be Baltazar Godson, the first Fatherlord and founder of Akir's Church. The man had died thousands of years ago, leaving the first in a long line of successors that had shepherded the Church over the centuries. Each Fatherlord since had chosen his successor, and in a ritual called the Transformation, primed that individual to receive Akir's presence when the former Fatherlord passed on. The chain had continued uninterrupted for thousands of years, ensuring the new Fatherlord always had the divine spark to guide him.
Now, though, Caleph faced the stark possibility it had all been a lie. That the presence which each Fatherlord passed to his successor was not Akir's at all, but some vestige of Baltazar himself—a mere man, if the conversations Caleph had overheard were any indication, who had set in place a plan to preserve his own soul over countless generations.
A plan which was now coming to fruition.
If he had heard it from anyone else, any source whatsoever, he would not have believed it. Indeed, he would have had the person who spoke such blasphemy executed. But endless hours alone in his mind, faced with the naked evidence, had forced a reckoning.
Baltazar—the man—had used the position of Fatherlord and the entire institution of the Church as a means to immortality. Akir didn't come into the question. Caleph was no longer even sure he believed a god named Akir existed.
But regardless of their source, he knew miracles could be worked. He knew demons were real. And therein lay his one chance for survival.
Now, as he lay between his silk sheets in the gloom of dawn, his mind raced. If Baltazar learned of his plan, or if he realized Caleph could briefly gain control in the gloaming between sleep and awareness, he might take some kind of drastic action to eliminate Caleph completely—seizing his body entirely as his own.
I may well have only one chance at this, he thought, waiting for any sign that Baltazar was about to wake. When none came, he counted down from three and forced himself to softly call, "E'tal!"
The Preserver entered his chambers at once. "Your Holiness."
"Contact Archbishop Genneth. Tell him I need an―"
Exorcist. The word quivered on his tongue, unspoken. He wrestled his own lips, willing them to speak.
"Your Holiness? Are you well?"
Baltazar slid through him, inhabiting his body as easily as if he'd slipped on a robe. Caleph ceded it to him, all of it except this one word, this one flick of the tongue that had the power to save him. "Eh," he managed. "Eh . . . ex . . ."
Then Baltazar seized even that, tore him frantic and wailing from his own thoughts and hurled him back into a forgotten cavern of his mind. A shroud of grey fell over the world, cutting him off from it.
He felt his head shake, a rueful smile play over his lips.
"I'm sorry, E'tal. Forget it."
"Your Holiness?"
Baltazar waved the Preserver off. "A dream," he said with Caleph's tongue. "That's all. Just a dream."
Inside the prison of his mind, Caleph wailed.
He washed his face and dressed, took his breakfast, and sat for a servant to groom him. As she brushed his hair, the face that looked back from the mirror was his, but its expressions were not; the quiet word of gratitude his tongue spoke did not come from his will, nor did the lingering gaze at the young woman's body as she turned to leave the room.
His hair arranged, he watched himself leave his chambers. His four Preservers fell in behind and about him, a cloud of futile protection. The threat is within! he wanted to cry. You idiots, the threat is within!
His personal assistant, Darius, began describing his day's schedule. "O'thel has additional concerns about food," the little man began. He was barely five feet tall, with a bald head pale as an egg and a meticulous beard. "He waits on sixteen, with Your blessing. After that, Samyan needs Your attention on an urgent message from the Old Kingdom, received just this morning by pigeon. I've moved Your meeting with Deacon Breer to tomorrow to make room."
"No. Breer has first priority, I told you that."
Darius gave a tight-lipped smile. "Of course, Your Holiness, but the message came from Lord Ornbridge himself. You've always―"
"Don't tell me what I've always done. The meeting with Breer stands." Baltazar started down the hall toward the stairs.
Caleph felt a spike of anxiety at the mention of the man's name. Since that first meeting, Baltazar had been meeting with Breer—D'haan—daily. They sounded like demons as they talked, like the wretched possessed. And though he could understand their words, little of their conversation ever made sense.
I don't want to meet with Deacon Breer. Caleph willed the words toward his assistant, begging him to somehow hear them. Please, Darius. He is a monster shrouded in flesh. Find Archbishop Genneth. Tell him—
"Yes, Your Holiness." Darius made a note on the paper he carried, his brow furrowing.
"And cancel the meeting with O'thel as well. I've other business."
"Your Holiness?" Darius ran a finger down the day's schedule. "I don't see―"
"It's private, Darius. Something I must attend to. Just see that O'thel is informed."
"Of course, Father. But the tidings did sound grim. The people are starving. After what happened in Keswick―"
"Don't speak to me of Keswick," Baltazar snapped. He reached the door that led to the stairwell. "That's enough. Find m
e again in two hours, outside the meeting with Breer."
From his prison, Caleph saw a flicker of suspicion in Darius's eyes. Yes, he thought. Yes! Something is wrong! Help me!
"Yes, Father." The man disappeared down the hall.
"Manther," Baltazar said when Darius had gone. "Ortoz." The two Preservers looked at him. "Stay here. Let none use the stairwell until I return." They nodded.
He went through the door and down the stairs, his destination a mystery. Caleph watched in powerless silence as he descended, eventually emerging on the fourteenth floor.
In contrast to his own room, the floors here were bare hardwood with only the occasional threadbare rug to blunt the ache in his feet. The clericlights hung dim and distant from each other, leaving broad swaths of hallway in shadow.
What are we doing here? Caleph wondered. He had never stepped foot on this level—it was for servants and maids, not the priesthood. The question dropped into the silence of his mind and vanished.
Baltazar hurried around one corner and then another, finally stopping at an unmarked door. He checked both directions. Like a conversation heard through a wall, Caleph heard Baltazar's voice in his mind, counting the doors. Yes, it whispered to itself. This is it.
Baltazar tried the door and found it locked. "E'tal," he said. "Open this door."
The Preserver stepped forward and forced the entry with a dull crunch, revealing a haphazard storage room. Baltazar darted inside. It was windowless and cramped, its contents crouched in the shadows.
Caleph's voice invoked a miracle: one of Caleph's most personal and powerful experiences, now walled away from him as if happening to another person entirely. Brilliant clericlight burst from the ceiling, transforming the storage room's mysteries to the mundane: dusty crates, old bedding, retired artwork.
"Check that wall," Baltazar ordered E'tal, pointing. "And Gove, check this one."
"What are we looking for?" The Preserver slinked between the boxes and cobwebs, winding his way to the indicated wall.
"Loose boards on the floor. Maybe the wall. A trapdoor, though it won't be obvious." Baltazar hurried to the last section of the room, unassigned to either of his Preservers, and began rummaging through the clutter.
Fifteen minutes later, E'tal said, "Here." Caleph's body, straining to move a ragged crate filled with old porcelain dinnerware, crossed the room.
"Yes," Baltazar said when he saw the faint outline of a door. It was well hidden, its contours blending into the existing schema of the floorboards. "Open it."
The Preserver tried, but couldn't get his fingers into the space between the boards. Eventually he took a knife from a box of silverware and used it for leverage. The door groaned open, revealing a small compartment abutting the subfloor. It housed half a dozen dusty scrolls. E'tal looked at Caleph expectantly.
Caleph gathered the scrolls. "A ruse. Break through it."
E'tal obeyed. The first strike revealed the apparent subfloor as a secret panel, which clattered into the darkness beneath.
"Good," Caleph's voice said. "Yes." He worked another miracle of light, illuminating a new chamber below them, then climbed down a ladder set into the wall.
If the first chamber had been a junk room, this was a treasure hall. Precious goblets and jewelry, golden tiaras crusted with gems, a chest overflowing with diamonds—itself studded with enough gems to buy a small keep. The chamber sprawled thirty feet distant, every inch of it covered in treasures that sparkled with reflected clericlight. It had no doors or other exits.
What is this place? Caleph could scarcely believe his eyes. There was more wealth in this one room than in most of Keswick. How could I not have known about this? And yet some part of him felt that he had known, like he'd dreamt about the chamber every night of his life and was only now remembering.
"Find the whitewood chest," Baltazar said. Like his Preservers, he was unimpressed with the collected wealth. "It'll be bolted to the floor, filled with―" He paused and rubbed his temple. Shook his head. "I don't remember. You'll need to unbolt it and empty it in order to move it. Beneath should be another door like the last one."
E'tal and Gove glided into the room, eyes darting. They eventually found the chest Baltazar had described, buried beneath a mound of precious tapestries and enough loose gold bars to purchase half of the Shientel Valley. They did as he bade them, removing a host of tinkling gems—sapphires, rubies, jade—and eventually undoing the bolts. Just as he said, a second trapdoor rested beneath. They opened it as they had with the last one, pushing again through the false subfloor beneath.
This time the ladder led to a small chamber, no more than ten feet to a wall, dark and musty. A broad, rectangular shape hunched in the darkness. When Baltazar's clericlight spilled across it, recognition dawned slowly but inexorably in Caleph's thoughts.
The crystal tower was old; so old even the ancient church of Ethaniel hadn't known when it had first been built. The foundation stone on which it rested was imbued with great power, and two pieces had been taken from it prior to the tower's construction.
One of these graced the center of Basica Sanctaria's center chapel. Fatherlords for millennia had used it to heighten their powers, to work miracles beyond the ken of even the greatest Archbishop. The power had to be used sparingly, because it risked the life of the one who dared it. Caleph himself had never had occasion to use it, but he knew tales of Fatherlords in ages past who had stood upon the Foundation Stone and wielded its power to turn back armies or conquer devils.
But the Foundation Stone was only one of the two pieces taken from Sanctaria's cornerstone. The other, the legends said, was made into an altar. It was only ever spoken of in ancient texts that predated even the book of Gilleus, which warned in fervent, arcane script that its power, when wielded by a gifted miracleworker, could raise the dead.
Find the altar. D'haan's words, unmistakable. By Akir, Caleph thought. Did he actually mean―?
Baltazar scrambled down the ladder. His clericlight fell over the altar like a rising dawn, revealing a block of chiseled white stone that seemed to amplify the light that touched it.
"Gove, stay here and guard it. I'll send Scarlet Guard and sons of the Tribunal to stand above. None will be allowed entrance to the treasure chamber; if you see anyone besides me, kill them on sight."
"D'haan?" Gove said, a rare request for clarification and a naked admission that Deacon Breer was not who he appeared to be. Baltazar didn't correct his use of the man's secret name. Instead he fell silent; Caleph felt his doubts churning.
"Notify me if he comes," Baltazar finally said, "but you wouldn't be able to stop D'haan anyway. Don't bother trying."
ii. Iggy
After days on the brink of death, being the hawk felt absolutely intoxicating.
He swooped and rolled, banked with the biting winter wind for the pure joy of it. The hawk surged, trying to push him out and seize control—and for a time, Iggy wanted to let it. The thought of complete release, surrendering to his inner self, felt heavenly.
When he forced himself back to the ground before he'd even left the highlands, becoming human again despite how much misery that existence had brought him, he couldn't have explained his reasons. He stumbled on his clumsy human legs to a little alcove out of the wind, and tried to remember why being human mattered.
Have to do less, he realized after he regained control of himself. Can't do it all day. Too hard.
So the trip took five days, not the two he had promised Bunta. The highlands gave way to snowy plains, Tal'aden a distant sparkle in the southern sky as he passed. When at last the snow-shrouded trees of Ordlan Green came into view, his control had finally begun improving once more. Now that I'm here, he thought, of course I feel like I could fly all day.
The forest flooded beneath him as if he had just shot over a beach and left land behind. He pushed hard for another few hours toward the center of the wood, as Moshun Dar loomed in the distance and the hills of the Waste sprawled into view on hi
s left. No snow there, he noticed. Cracked and dead, the Waste was as desolate as it had been last year.
Finally he spotted the Deep-Tree's canopy and banked into a long descent as he circled back to it.
Ignatius Ardenfell, came a voice on the wind from beneath the tree cover.
Ciir-kahls, Iggy called back. He would've smiled if his beak had permitted it. It felt good to be welcomed home, even if he came with bad news.
He slowed and controlled his descent, flapping between Mother Ordlan's boughs. Even in the depth of winter, even in her sleep, the Deep-Tree held her leaves. As he cleared them, he saw the horned fox in the meadow below, tongue lolling with a smile. It is good to see you, Kahls whispered.
Ciir-goath's voice, too, was unmistakable. You have failed. The great stag emerged from the forest just as Iggy's talons touched the ground.
Iggy's warm feelings curdled. I almost died, he threw back, but thanks for caring. He arched his wings one last time, and became himself again. Kahls ignored Goath's grim greeting and bounded forward, shoving his forehead against Iggy's hand. Iggy broke into a grin despite himself. It's good to see you too, Kahls.
We saw the fifth Storm far in the southeastern sky, Goath scolded as he strode forward, but the winter is unbroken. You should not be here. The sixth Seal must be opened at once, ere the earth sleeps forever and the last tree falls.
Oh, greet him, Goath, Kahls yipped. He is the only speaker we have. His arrival is good, no matter the circumstance.
Calm down, Iggy whispered. The last tree's not going to fall. Syntal's working on it.
Nearly six moons this winter has gone already, Goath insisted, while the land lies dying beneath its weight. Sha'anthelas would never have—
Sha'anthelas is gone, Iggy snarled, and we have deeper problems. Shut up and listen to me.
The meadow snapped to silence. Goath's eyes narrowed in affront. Iggy ignored him and seized the moment.
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